Happy Thanksgiving

My America By Andrew Sullivan

Piece by a British ex-pat living in the U.S. about his thoughts on Thanksgiving.  I don't have anything original to post today, so happy Thanksgiving.

Tuition tax wouldn't be small change to students - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Tuition tax wouldn't be small change to students - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Not a full post, but since one of the seminaries I'm applying to is in Pittsburgh, I'm kind of annoyed at this. The City of Pittsburgh has decided that non-profits aren't doing enough to support the city, and so is retaliating by taxing post-secondary tuition, because higher education isn't already expensive enough.

Remembrance Day

Following my post on Halloween as an interesting holiday, I thought I'd postpone writing on the retreat last week and instead take this time to talk about a few other dates.

Today is Rememberance day, which means that this past Sunday was Remembrance Sunday, ( the Sunday closest to the Remembrance Day) which is, like Veteran's Day in the U.S. on the 11th of November, in commemoration of the end of the First World War. Unlike in the U.S. the holiday is also celebrated in churches, marked by participation of the Uniformed Organizations (Boys' Brigade, Girls Brigade, Scouts and Guides) these groups are similar to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in the U.S. but are generally more involved in the church, and marching plays a larger part (at least according to Andy).

The service is also marked by everyone (or so it seemed) wearing red poppies, most of them paper poppies sold in shops to benefit the Royal British Legion, which works to support veterans.

The other side of Rememberance Sunday and Rememberance Day (because there always is another side in Northern Ireland) is that it is a British (and therefore unionist holiday). This unionist sentiment is compounded by the acts of Irish Republicans during the First World War, and the neutrality of the Republic of Ireland during the Second, but there were still a large number of Catholic Irish from both sides of the border who served honorably in both wars, and these people risk being or feeling excluded, or that their service and sacrifice is unappreciated.

Another problem with Rememberance Sunday, or at least an obstacle for me is the ease with which commemorating soldiers can lead to glorifying war, especially in a divided society such as still exists in Northern Ireland. The events of the day can very easily be seen as highly jingoistic. and thus I was highly appreciative of the way the service was run here at Harmony Hill. The choir's anthem was a musical arrangement of the Prayer of St. Francis, and David's sermon addressed also the discomfort that I, and many others have "remembering war in case we are guilty of glorifying it, or of wrapping the gospel in one particular flag. But remembering is not glorifying, remembering is respecting."

For anyone interested, you can listen to Harmony Hill services here. The Remembrance Sunday Service under Sunday, November 8th, 2009. The choir anthem I referred to is at 740 seconds in, the sermon is 1,997 seconds in (the number shown is seconds). You can also find the service as a podcast on iTunes, in which case the choir anthem is at 12:20 and the sermon at 33:17.

Halloween

Halloween is an interesting holiday here.

There are a fair number of Christians who consider the holiday pagan and demonic, and thus want nothing to do with it. True, there are people in the U.S. who think that way as well, but there seem to be more of them here.

At the same time, however, the city of Belfast holds a pretty substantial concert/festival at the docks near city center. I didn't go because I had to work, but a few of the other YAVs went, and it was quite the show.

Trick or Treating does happen, but on a smaller scale than in the U.S., and money is a common substitute for candy. According to the experience of Amy and Madeline, the kids aren't at all hesitant to ask for cash either. We didn't get any here, but that might also be because I live in a high rise apartment block with controlled access.

The big thing that kids do here for Halloween is run around shooting off fireworks. I don't mean just little crackers, some of these are big, legit fireworks that people are setting off, and have been setting off for the past month. On Halloween night they were all around the building, some of which were quite nice to watch from the living room, but it was a bit unnerving having them surround you.

Riding my bike home from work that evening was also scary, since I could hear them all around me, and I'd heard stories of people throwing them from cars, so I felt like quite the target, but I made it home fine.

Coming out fine was actually a bit of a theme for the day. For the past several Saturdays, and finishing tomorrow, The Base has hosted a peer leadership program for some of the local youth, run by two other youth organizations which means that the youth taking it can get a certification towards their OCN (Open College Network, don't ask me to explain, I don't understand it myself, just that being certified/getting a certification is a good thing, I think). Anyway, it was, as per usual, raining that day. What was unusual was that we got what I like to call "Virginia Rain"--hard, big, fast drops coming in a downpour for a few minutes and then passing.

The problem with that is that while much rain is received here, it tends to be much more spread out. So the drainage system didn't so much work out well for us at The Base that day--the drain was clogged, and we almost flooded.

Yeah, the water is even with the weather strip there, part of the door is actually submerged. John and I had to clear some of the water with buckets before someone else could reach deep enough to find and remove the block. (Actually, eventually he had to go home to get chimney sweeping rods (which are slightly bendy) and used those to clear the drain, after which the water dropped the rest of the way, but John and I had already cleared 3 to 4 inches with the buckets.

In other recent events, we went to Planet Fun with some of the third years from The Base. Planet Fun is a travelling amusement park, with rides and games similar to what you might find at the Dogwood Festival in Charlottesville, or just about any county fair, the difference being that some of them were inside (the ever present rain).

Another odd thing is that there is a Halloween break from school here. Given, it isn't really Halloween, it's their half term break, and it just happens to generally coincide Halloween, but it has meant that I've been able to catch up on a few things in the past week, enabling me to FINALLY post another update.

There will be more coming later, mostly about the YAV retreat earlier this week, but for now I'm taking a break from writing. Oh, I've also uploaded a TON of pictures to facebook, going back into mid-September, so you can go there for a look back at what I've been doing, and even a sneak peak of what will be coming soon to here.

Chaos

I've been something of a sham about posting, I've been working on a couple posts that will come up later, including more historical background of the area, but I'm not happy with those at the moment, so they will get more work. In the meantime, a bit from me.

The question I am most often asked (possibly even the phrase I most often hear) is "How are you settling in?" It's a question frequently asked of all of us here, and seems to come both from genuine concern, and possibly from people simply not having a better way to start conversation. Normally, I give some short, pleasant, non-committal answer, assuming the question is given in the same sense as the "How're yous" two university students might exchange as they pass each other on campus. Neither really wants an extended answer, and both need to keep moving towards class anyway.

I sometimes wonder, though, if people are genuine in their interest, and actually do want more than a three word answer ("Fine, thank you"). This concern, as well as a growing awareness of the danger and seduction of three word phrases, and the realization that I haven't updated in a month leads to this post.

First, pictures--some are up on facebook, some need to be posted, and at some point I plan to post pictures here, or at least link to them, but that is a task for another time. I'm finally settling into a routine, getting familiar with the bus and rail system to the point that I sometimes (sometimes) don't even have to check the time tables.

Second, I'm finally beginning to get close to some people here and adapt to the quirks. There have been some hilarious mix ups with words here committed by some of the other yavs, but the one that gets me the most is the group prayer before we open The Base for the Friday drop in, where someone almost always prays for craic (pronounced crack). It's an Irish word, though it is used by both communities here, and roughly means "fun," though its usage is a bit more complicated than that.

My fundraising is going well, especially since I just received a substantial grant from the Presbytery of the James, which is a great relief, and hopefully they will continue their generosity in the future if I go to Seminary. I'm working on several applications, though I've become busier than I expected, especially since I've ended up spending a fair amount of time dealing with my computer, which has decided to act up a bit.

And now I've lost the inspiration that began this post, so I'm going to take a break from trying to be self reflective.

Some Background-Part Two: Irish Independence

While Pro-British media at the time portrayed the leaders of the Easter Uprising as villains, not particularly loved by the Irish, this appears to have not been the case, or at least to have not been as sweeping a statement as the British would have liked. It seems likely that the British response to the uprising was a factor in the strengthening of Sinn Fein and it's landslide victory in the 1918 Parliamentary elections, following which the Sinn Fein MPs (Members of Parliament) decided not to take their seats in the UK Parliment in Westminster, but instead gathered in Dublin and, in 1919 declared independence.

Some Background-Part One

Now that I've gotten slightly more settled in, and am beginning to adapt to my daily routine I've decided to give you a bit of background. Before I begin, I want to emphasize that this is in no way comprehensive or complete, and while I am trying to be objective, this is still based on my own subjective opinion.

First, for all the people who think this is a purely religious conflict, it isn't. Catholic and Protestant are short hand labels for two communities that differ on ethnic and political lines as well as religious ones; a more accurate set of labels would be Nationalist and Unionist; in basic terms, Catholics/Nationalists want Northern Ireland to be part of The Republic of Ireland, and not the UK. Protestants/Unionists want to remain part of the UK--this is the basic political divide.

As far as the ethnic divide, Catholic/Nationalists are native Irish, while Protestants/Unionists are mostly of English and Scottish descent, though in many cases their families have been living here for generations.

In terms of the recent violence here, it seems to go back to the early 20th century, when the concept of Irish Home Rule gained traction in the British Parliment. In response, some members of the Protestant/Unionist population took up arms AGAINST independence, forming the Ulster Volunteers. During the First World War, many members of the Ulster Volunteers joined the British military and fought on the continent.

In response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers, Irish nationalists formed the Irish Volunteers, who, in 1916 joined with several other nationalists groups to form the Irish Republican Army and launched the Easter Uprising against the UK. This uprising was quickly put down and it's leaders executed, but it introduced (or re-introduced) violence into the political atmosphere, and (depending on who you ask), many thought the executed leaders were heroes and martyrs.

Part Two will follow with Irish Independence, and possibly the beginnings of the modern conflict.