For Our Healing

Over the years I have had the great privilege of meeting and working alongside people from all over Fermanagh as you have engaged yourselves in the task of facing the Troubles and rebuilding lives and relationships. Only a few weeks ago, September 11, 2001, in my home land, we have faced for the first time at a level unknown to our people, the challenge of inexplicable violence, the loss of innocence and of precious lives, and the long, long journey of healing. These past weeks I had been reflecting on your courageous efforts, and what lessons they hold for us, when the invitation to write this preface arrived. There must have been a weaving of common Spirit, for our paths cross again.

The letter of invitation from Fermanagh District Partnerships’ Victims Programme asked me to write a short preface on a “theme of my choice.” I sat and stared at a blank computer screen for a long while. My mind drifted back to my last visit in Northern Ireland. We were in Omagh, not long after the devastating bomb that seemed as if it might undo the fragile peace…