SIgns of hope for the future
Signs of Hope appeared around Crossmaglen and Cullyhanna recently. Volunteers and staff from Crossfire Trust erected signs at various key points around the area.
When asked what the motivation was behind putting the signs up, Ian Bothwell, Director of Crossfire Trust explained, "I really want to deliver on reconciliation and this is more to do with our hearts before God and in honesty to our neighbours, than with European Funding.
Grants and finance from Europe have really helped but sometimes our motivation for cross community work has been to avail of funding and reconciliation is something which we give lip service to in order to obtain cash for some other aspect of work. It is easy to let the important issues slip and to settle for what we have now, which is better than what we had for thirty years - but it is not the best. We as a people can do better than what we have at the moment. It is all about desire and our level of faith, expectation and work.
At Crossfire Trust, we believe in reconciliation. It is in our book - the Bible, and we within Crossfire Trust have been reconciled to God and in return have received a ministry of reconciliation, that compels us, urges us, to be involved in the community offering reconciliation."
Ian went on to explain, "I want to remind the South Armagh community, which has gone through conflict in recent months, that reconciliation works. I don´t want to see reconciliation undermined, but affirmed as an achievable goal. When we are reconciled we can actually become stronger and more determined not to fall out again and put things in place to prevent deterioration of relationships."
"I often remind people that God´s love, according to 1 Corinthians ch 13, in the Bible, ´keeps no record of wrongs´. So if we could allow God´s love to heal our hearts it will affect how we remember the hurts of the past and produce a freedom and even courage to love again. We need to influence our future with hope and break the cycle of repeating history. We are in danger of more of the same - more trouble, more conflict, more division, more carved up territory and less love. I simply want to encourage people to practice forgiveness and create space in the heart for love to grow. Forgiveness is the lost key of peace making. The key can only be found on the inside of the heart.
It is up to the individual. I am aware in the victim/survivor network how very difficult this may be for some, but I can not see any other way of dealing with the past.
We need to choose life and make a conscious decision to live a life of love."
