suicide sucks

i was at a thing tonight in west belfast called solidarity against suicide. it was pretty powerful, a bunch of people from different churches coming together to talk about the issue, pray, give and consider practical steps to stopping the spiraling suicide rates in west belfast and ireland as a whole.
it seems really twisted to me that even the most broke person in belfast is like 1000s of times richer than over 2 billion people on the planet yet life can still get so hopeless they kill themselves. not that money = happiness but more suicide = despiration and dispiration means a lack of hope on job / life / money front. i dont know its a kinda deeper thing too i guess.

the question i have is how have we let our city get to the point where 26 of every 100,000 people would rather be dead?

its easy to point the finger and the "problems of the world" and moan about how powerless we are, but here i our city there is something really really wrong that we need to address. a part of our destiny lies in the hands and lives of all the people of this country and if we say just cause they wear tracksuits and have bad mostaches we dont want to know them, then we are missing the point of who Jesus was; we cant deny the humanity in another induvidual without losing a bit of our own.

but more, much more than this, God's heart is for hope and freedom and destiny, and he longs to use his people to set the captives free and let the down-trodden know God is on their side (see luke 4,18> for details). and its on these adventures we discover who we are and see him move in power to do miracles and bring that freedom...

so maybe the restless middle class church goers, myself included, that seem to overrun this city / country should stop watching dvds and drinking coffee and start getting involved with the least of these on our doorstep....

a non performance based realationship

fresh hard rain, ran down the back of my neck, as i sauntered back across the road with a warm coffee. sipping the steaming brew as rain water fell in sheets its amazing how much on can become aware of in a reflective mood on a sunday afternoon...
after spending the dregs of a night on half a tiny sofa with a friend I had been much more than friendly with, the strange reality of Jesus love took me by surprise.

the sofa having been preceded by a day including praying for healing and vjing at a christian event, there were definitely a few hypocrisy alarm bells ringing. but then in church having told all to some unsuspecting member of the prayer ministry team, the guilt trip i was probably twistedly hoping for failed to kick in, instead they encouraged me to realise how much Jesus delighted in me and who i was...

and that is the truth of grace and why Jesus death on the cross produces this most beautiful non-performance based relationship. he understands we will continually make mistakes and break any rules our society or religion might suggest. these disasters are almost irrelevant to how much he completely loves us.