Email: Bethany Therriault

Friends,

It is June. In fact, since this is Northern Ireland, it is more relevant to say that it is almost July because July is the beginning of parade season, which leads up to (and continues after) the July 12 holiday, in which the Protestant King William’s victory over Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is commemorated. My very Protestant neighborhood is festooned with flags and banners—from the Union Jack to the flags of Scotland and England, UVF banners and banners festooned with the Red Hand of Ulster. The red, white, and blue paint on curbs and lamp posts has been freshened, and everywhere you look, you are reminded that you live in a neighborhood that is very, very proud to be Protestant.

It is strange to me to see this sudden explosion of Unionism. When I first arrived here, the parade season was coming to an end. The flags and banners were faded, weary and bedraggled. Parades were few and far between, and the excitement and tension of another parade season were coming to an end. Now, though, a new season is upon the city, and it is as if I am reading the beginning of a story to which I have already read the epilogue.

It is also strange that I suddenly realized that the beginning of parade season means the beginning of the end of my time as a YAV in Belfast. That realization has brought with it a bizarre constellation of emotions. I am so excited and happy to get a chance to go home and spend time with my family and friends. I am anxious and excited about starting a new year of education at Queen’s. I am nervous, anxious, and frustrated with all the details associated with becoming a student in another country. I am grateful for the year that I’ve had, the people that I’ve met, the experiences that I’ve had. But most of all, lately, I have been frustrated, angry and scared because of an irrational fear that I’ve been a bad volunteer, that I haven't had the year that I was meant to have, that I have failed as a YAV.

At first, I tried to convince myself that I had been a perfectly good YAV, because if I hadn’t, someone would have told me. When that failed, I decided to blame people and circumstances beyond my control. The minister at Garnerville left, my boss at the Link left, and the transition was difficult, blah blah blah. That failed. I was still terrified and miserable. Finally, I broke down and did something that I don’t make a point of doing often enough. I prayed. I told God I was upset and scared and terrified that I had failed at something that I believed that He wanted me to do. And I waited for something to happen. When nothing happened, I became even more upset.

This morning, after one of the crappiest weeks that I've had since I got here, I picked up one of Sarah's books that has been sitting around our house since we got here. It's called Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I sat down and read it, cover to cover. Basically, it’s the story of a woman who goes on her own version of a spiritual journey after experiencing a number of personal hardships and dealing with severe depression. It is a well-written, funny, and altogether enjoyable book. And as I sat there reading it, I started thinking about an old Sunday school song:

I am the Light of the world.
You people come and follow me.
If you follow and see,
You’ll learn the mystery
of what you were meant to do and be.

I kept thinking about it, singing it to myself as I finished the book and went about the various tasks that I needed to accomplish today. And eventually I had an epiphany. It honestly felt like God was sitting there waiting for me to figure it out, and when the light bulb finally went on and I turned around and said to God, “Is that it?” God just smiled as I hit myself on the forehead and said, "Duh!"

It was simply this: I started on this journey—becoming a YAV, coming to Belfast—for two reasons, one personal, one spiritual. The personal reason was that I needed to experience Belfast, to see the peace process in action, because I feel called to pursue a career in peacebuilding, and I have spent and will spend a lot of time learning about peacebuilding from an academic perspective. I needed to see and experience peacebuilding from the practical side, to see it in action. Thus, Belfast. The spiritual reason was that I felt called to come here, which was partly due to the peacebuilding thing, and partly just God saying, “Go there now” and not telling me why. Now, anyone who knows me will know that I am not the kind of person that is easy with that sort of thing; I need to know things. I’m seriously uneasy when I don't know the “why” of things. But I came here determined to follow God's call and hoping to find out why.

This year was nothing like I expected it to be. I could never have guessed that I would have been doing the work that I’ve done. If I had been told that I would be doing the work that I’ve ended up doing, I probably wouldn't have wanted to do it. It isn't work that I'm naturally suited for, and it isn't work that I generally love doing. Thus my frustration, and my fear that I am a bad YAV because I don’t always love my work and I’m not sure if I’m very good at it.

And so today, when I found myself singing that little song, I realized that I had come here following Him, trying to see, even when it was difficult, and so even when the work was new and scary and challenging, it was OK because I was doing what He called me to do. And some time in the last few weeks, I had stopped following and stopped looking. I had started to think, in true independent American fashion, that I should be forging my own path in the wilderness. I had stopped trusting Him to show me the mysteries of myself and started trying to divine them on my own. And it wasn't working. And I was miserable. And so today I am rededicating myself to following God, to trusting God to reveal my path to me in His own time, and to applying myself to following and watching, always watching for God to show me the path, to show me my path and my self.

This is an important moment for me, an important step on my journey. I am not going to beat myself up over falling off the path, I am just going to get up, dust myself off and keep walking. I have this fantastic image in my head from my time in Iona. We went on a pilgrimage one day in which we walked all over the island. Since the island, like most of Highland Scotland, is hilly, muddy, and generally challenging for walking, it was inevitable that someone with my degree of clumsiness would fall more than once. And, of course, I did. The faster I walked, the more I had to look down at the ground to pick out a path that would keep me from falling in the muck, and the more I ended up falling in the muck because I wasn’t looking carefully enough because I wasn't giving myself enough time to look at the step in front of me, let alone taking enough time to glance at the incredible beauty surrounding me.

This week, I have been struggling through the muck, getting more and more mired and tired and not noticing the beauty of sea and sky and hills around me. And God, my guide, has been waiting for me on the path, watching, holding out His hand to help me up when I fall and patiently waiting for me to return to the path. And I have stubbornly been trying to carve my own path and have instead succeeded only in getting really mucky and really frustrated and finally falling face down in a bog. And God, instead of chastising me or laughing at me, has simply held out His hand and pulled me up and asked me, “Now, are you ready to get back on the path?” And I, with a rueful laugh as I contemplate my completely ruined clothes and an impressive collection of bruises, have said, “Yes.” And so now, as I stand on the path again, I can see the glorious vista spread out before me. And I commit myself to noticing this beauty even as I pay more careful attention to the path beneath my feet. And as I walk, I hum my little song

I Am the Light of the World

I am the light of the world; you people come and follow me.
If you follow and see, you'll learn the mystery,
Of what you can do and you can be.

To find a lost and lonely man, to heal a broken soul with love;
To feed the hungry children with warmth and good food,
To feel the earth below, the sky above.

To bring hope to every task you do, to dance at every baby's birth;
To bring the sound of music to some old man's heart,
To sing the brilliant colors of the earth.

To free the prisoner from his chains, to make the powerful ones agree;
To rebuild all the nations with strength and goodwill,
To call a man your brother anywhere.

Bethany