Transformational Friendship

Radio 4's Sunday Worship to mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was entitled 'Transformational Friendship' and led by two church leaders from Belfast who had an interesting story to tell of the power of friendship to reach across divides.

Steve Stockman is Minister of Fitzroy Presbyterian church in the Queens University area of South Belfast, and Martin Magill is Parish Priest of St Johns Catholic church on the Falls Rd in West Belfast. Steve surmised that there were probably not too many such friendships but he added that, "Over time I've come to realise that it's our friendship and who we are that's probably more important than what we say."

Steve and Martin met over ten years ago when Martin asked about holding Irish language classes in the Fitzroy church hall, with a view to a greater take up of Irish language learning amongst members of the protestant unionist and loyalist communities. The two got on well from the outset and Martin stresses the importance in peace-making of building good relationships. Steve confided that he had grown up in a community that was suspicious of reaching out to the other side and that his interest in peace-making had only really begun after meeting Martin. He explains that, "Getting to know someone from 'the other side'…changed everything." Somebody said to them early on, "Don't contrive any events or any projects…get to know each other, build your friendship, and then when something comes around that you can work on, you will have that friendship and be able to do it."

Something did indeed come around. Steve and Martin realised that there were many people in Belfast who would never have seen entire areas of their city or met people from 'the other side' and they somehow had the idea of a festival. As Steve explained, it was about, "trying to get people to get out of their corner and into another corner so that they might become friends." The '4 Corners Festival' is now in its 10th year and this year it runs from January 30th - February 6th. As the strapline says, it's about 'Bringing Belfast together', and as it states on the Homepage, it 'seeks to inspire people from across the city to transform it for the peace and wellbeing of all.'

Steve and Martin stress again and again the importance of simply being friends. Martin said, "We're often asked to talk about our story, which in essence comes back to relationship," and Steve spoke of daring to reach out to the 'other' whoever the other happens to be in any particular context. Martin added: "There's a sense that it's not just for the two of us, not even just for our congregations, not even for Belfast, but it's much wider than that, and I suppose in some ways we're tapping into principles, and again the likes of relationships that have much wider application."

A week after listening to Steve and Martin's inspiring story I was in Canterbury cathedral for a service to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The celebrants included Cliff Cohen, rabbi of a local synagogue, and Dr Sinan Rawi, imam of the Canterbury Mosque. Both did readings and, together with Dean Robert of the cathedral, they lit candles of remembrance as the choir sang a setting of 'The Lord is My Shepherd' in Hebrew. It was very moving. I don't know whether the rabbi and the imam have a personal friendship but such gestures of reaching out across the divides can be very significant markers in the painstaking business of peace-making.

At the Lambeth conference of 1998 held in Canterbury the L'Arche Kent community was invited to perform a mime on the theme of reconciliation. We worked with a story-teller and chose an old story from the Balkans, a corner of the world which has witnessed more than its fair share of inter-tribal bloodshed. Forty of us took part in the mime, twenty wearing red T-shirts, twenty with turquoise T-shirts. A battle raged across two stages, with some of the L'Arche members entering into the killing with great gusto! Eventually just two combatants remained alive: one of the reds, me, and one of the turquoises, Geoffrey. Night had fallen so we both put aside our weapons, looked sadly and angrily around the battlefield at our fallen comrades, and sat down to rest, initially some distance from one another. As the night wore on we each began to eat and to tentatively share some food with the other. We then began to talk and to tell our stories. I spoke of my family, and at that point there appeared on the huge video screen behind us a picture of my (real life) wife and then young children. Then there appeared a picture of the people special to Geoffrey.

When dawn began to break we stood and picked up our weapons in order to resume battle. We looked at one another for a few moments, and then came the words of the narrator, words which will I'm sure resonate with people like Steve and Martin in Belfast or with Cliff and Sinan in Canterbury, and with anybody who has been transformed by reaching out to the other: "They knew each other's story, they could hate no more."

Geoffrey and I dropped our weapons, and we embraced.