More adventures in the Shared Medley: a few nights ago I was at a service at Westbourne Presbyterian (a near neighbour on the Lower Newtownards Road) to mark the 70-year anniversary of the Belfast Blitz. We entered the church past a massive anti-aircraft gun and searchlight; then we heard sounds and stories from April and May 1941, when Belfast was taking a pounding from relentless waves of Luftwaffe bombers (many of their targets were in the TQ – they were aiming at the shipyards). We listened to eyewitness accounts, ranging from the tragic to the comic – we heard about the man who wanted to return to his house in the middle of an air-raid to fetch his false teeth. “Catch yourself on”, his wife told him, “they’re dropping bombs – not sandwiches”.

As the service progressed, it was the sounds that got to me. Old hymns, sung to bring hope and strength to the soul; old popular songs, sung to keep spirits up in the face of hardship. And the scream of the old air-raid siren; that shriek sent shivers up my spine even on a safe, warm Spring night in 2011, a world away from the darkness and fear of the worst days of the war. It’s hard for me to even conceive what people lived through as the streets of Belfast were pounded and broken night after night.

Thanks to my Titanic Walking Tour knowledge, I now know that there’s an incredible twist to this story if we fast-forward 28 years; 1969 and the massive yellow crane, Goliath is being installed above the Belfast skyline, to be followed by Samson in 1974. If you look closely you can see the a name stamped on the metal; they were built by the German manufacturer Krupp. Back in the 40s, Krupp were major armaments manufacturers, supplying Hitler’s war machine. So it’s distinctly possible that the bombs being dropped on Belfast during the blitz were manufactured by the same company who sent teams over here 3 decades later to help install their two cranes. There are some great stories around the shipyards about how the company policy was the old Basil Fawlty line “don’t mention the war”. But behind the jokes is the profound truth that a community within living memory of the blitz could extend the hand of friendship.

Another few decades later, and forgiveness is something we all still struggle with, both as a nation and as individuals. No-one pretends that it is easy. But we have two shining yellow metal monuments standing above the city to remind us of the power of forgiveness, the hope of change, the immense capacity for people to move from broken past to hopeful future. It’s a hope that carries echoes for me of the heart of God, expressed in powerful words from Psalm 46:

He makes wars cease 
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; 
he burns the shields with fire.
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Chris