An Easter Story

“You’re not from f***in around here are ya?”  Nope, I’m not. 

I begin talking to my cab driver about being from America and moving here to do youth work in Poleglass as we drive around the Poleglass Roundabout.  “How do you find the Colin area?”  - one of the most commonly asked questions from cab drivers and locals.  It’s a hard one to answer, but I tell the truth.  It’s a deprived area with few shops and opportunities for employment, but the people are very welcoming and lovely.  We then start talking about the young people and a few more “f words” fly about.  (The “f word” is spoken much more frequently here, so I have come accustomed to it. And to think ten years ago I thought it was the WORST word ever.) 

My driver starts to talk about the challenges with young people and how it all starts with drugs.  He then explains to me what he thinks about drugs, and I listen quietly thinking in my own head how there is more than drugs going on in these neighborhoods.  To my surprise my cab driver even has an answer to the problems- take all the drug dealers and cut off their hands.  He explains a few times how this will solve the problems by having the drug dealers hands cut off.  My mind is racing between people in Detroit who I know have sold drugs to feed their families, handless people in Sierra Leone, and the political celebrations occurring in Catholic West Belfast among the republicans.  I am sure I have just met one those hard core Republicans!

I quietly shared the story of my friend who sold drugs in Detroit because no one in his family had money.  Turing around in my street, my cab driver had a story of his own about the largest drug dealer in Poleglass.  This man didn’t have a good background as a child, so his own dad pulled him under his wing- he watched out for him and brought him fishing.  Even with this support, the lure towards drug dealing, snagged him, and pulled him under.  Now he’s caught in a business supplying drugs throughout the Colin area. 

All I could think about was something a friend of mine wrote about cycles:

 “There is a tendency of the devil to create cycles. Cycles where one sin breeds another and that: another, until this sin returns to the original sin. Cycles where hopeless situations breed hopeless people.”  I quickly shared about the cycles of sin and suffering we all fall into, and how they are so difficult to break out.  And as we were sitting in front of my house, rather than asking for my money and driving on, my cab driver this “proper westie” whose language was sprinkled with F-bombs said “My life has been destroyed by drugs.  Since my son was 13 (now he’s 18) I have seen drugs destroy him.”  This man opened up his life of hurt, pain, and despair.  He motioned his hands up and down his arms and legs describing how his sons is covered with cuts, how they found him in battery acid trying to take his own life, how drugs have literally driven him to the cliff of despair.  I heard a man share about the despair he has felt and encountered watching his son’s life crumble apart.  And once again, I find myself with a parent of a child not knowing what to do anymore. 

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1.5  Easter is about this truth.  Easter is about the celebration of victory- of the light of the world coming down into the darkness, shining brightly for all to see, and conquering darkness with light.  This is what defines Christians- Jesus Christ conquering sin and death in order that we may have life and have it to the full.  Love always wins!

A few weeks ago, I was extremely overwhelmed after doing street outreach work by how messed up our world is around us.  I heard a girl talk about the chaos she has lived in and how her older brother died from a cocaine overdose.  Later that evening I saw 13 year olds running down the street - knifes in hand.  When I got home, I just wept over the situations and it reminded me of so many situations I experienced in Detroit.  I was frustrated that God didn’t stop the bullets flying in Detroit piercing the flesh of young men or scoop the young people out of these situations.  I knew he was there for them on the cross, but I didn’t see why he didn’t physically come and safe them from these horrific situations.   I was so grateful that night to talk to my friend Priscilla from Detroit about it all.  Through that conversation the Lord showed me how rather than coming to scoop us out of these situations, he instead entered into them with us.   By entering into the “shite” with us, he was able to redeem them.  This truth and realization has completely changed the way I view the cross and resurrection.  How incredible that we have a God who enters into our suffering in order that it may be redeemed!  It’s so much greater than just being scooped out of it.

On this Easter evening, I was placed into the suffering of a father who loved his son so much, yet ached because of the pain he had gone through.  It’s in these moments  it’s hard for me to know what to do next.  I quietly share how I am a person of prayer, and I would like to pray for his son.  The man behind the wheel tells me that he would appreciate that and his sons name is Michael. We then begin to talk about God, and how it’s sometimes hard to believe. Despite that though, he told me how recently after receiving communion at Mass, he went back to pray, and surrendered his son to God.  He realized that there was nothing more he could do for him, so he gave him up to God.  We talked about pilgrimages him and his mother had been on praying for his son.  And we talked about his other children and how their lives have been affected.

A bit of relief comes into his voice as he talks about his son being in jail.  The week earlier, he had been imprisoned, and the father knows he’s safe there.  It’s Easter night, I’m just coming back from hanging out with friends, I met a cab driver who I chalked up to be an opinionated Westie, and now I am sitting silently with a broken man thinking about the meaning of Easter.  In a moment like this, the Easter eggs, family dinners, and new clothes don’t really mean much.  Rather the truth that God became man, entered into our suffering, died on the cross, conquered sin and death, rose from the dead in order that we may have hope and new life becomes much more real, yet doesn’t make any sense at all. The more I share about the Easter story the more it makes absolutely no sense to me.  Rather, all I can do it believe and find a deep sense of hope that it’s true.  And I try to share this truth and love with others.

I finally pay my cab fare 4 pounds (he didn’t give me the Easter rate, but rather the regular price), and I ask him his name.  It’s Michael just like his sons.   I tell him the story of St. Michael the Archangel, and how he fought Satan and kicked him out of Heaven.  He’s a warrior, and I think it’s good that his son bears the name.  Michael, the driver, told me that he believes that everything happens for a reason, and he believes we were meant to meet.  I believe we were too.  And now, hanging on my prayer wall is the names “Michael and Michael,” and I regularly lift them up in prayer.  I pray the Spirit fills their lives and the cycles of sin and death break!  For on Easter day, Christ was victorious and I hope for the day when their will be no more tears or death but rather rejoicing. Until that sweet day, I will follow the footsteps of my Savior entering into the suffering around me in order that the light of Christ may shine in the darkness.  Love always wins!