In hopes of soaking up some much needed vitamin D, I headed out this morning to walk around the park in my neighborhood, a park I had yet to explore. The park was quiet when I arrived, just a few people walking their dogs.
As I made my first lap around the large pond in the park, I began to talk to a man about his dog. He was with a beautiful brown and white spaniel named Maddy that had so much energy. I have found that being away from home, I really miss my dog and it is often easy to bond with strangers over animals. As I walked with this man and his dog, we began to talk. He told me about Belfast and having grown up in the area. We spoke about the challenges that living in Belfast pose.
For the first hour and a half, we talked about everything from the different countries we had been to to the terrible weather here and the way in which the prices in the supermarket have risen drastically in the past few hours. As we neared our fifth and final lap of the park, I asked my new friend if the park we were in was in a "mixed area" (a place where Catholic and protestants live side by side). He looked at me and chuckled. "I was waiting for you to ask those sorts of questions girl. I knew I would eventually become a part of your study," he told me. "Let's wait until there is no one around us and I will tell you the truth," he explained.
My friend pointed to the different areas you could see in the park, he would say "You see that area over there? That is where the rich protestants live. And this here stadium, its a catholic stadium. And those houses over there...those ones are catholic houses." Quite amazed, I asked him then if the park was somewhere that anyone could come and he said "oh yea, here at the park none of that really matters." He explained to me, that in his perspective, so long as you look like you know when you are going, no one will bother you. He told me that in his opinion, there are idiots in every country so Northern Ireland is no different. My friend explained to me that he's "a bit like scrambled eggs" as his mom is protestant and his dad is Catholic. He grew up always in Catholic areas but never really went to mass or anything, so really it makes no difference to him. He told me, "Christmas is about chocolate and presents to most, you know?"
I told my friend my story, having been baptized Catholic but choosing a protestant church as a teenager. I shared with him which church I had been attending here (a Presbyterian one) and he asked me, "so what do you guys do in there?". I giggled. I don't really think anyone has ever asked me what I do in church. I explained to him a bit about this church I attend in Belfast and how it differs from my one at home, so then he was curious as to what really made it different from Catholic church. I explained to him, with a bit more attention to detail than I will express here, that basically we are all Christians who love Jesus but show it in different ways, using unique practices and having some different understandings. My friend then smiled at me and said, "so basically you guys just don't kneel as much?". He made me laugh.
It always amazes me how you can be engaged in a conversation with a complete stranger, only to notice two hours later that you have not even asked each others' names. Today was not just a walk in the park, it was a pleasant surprise. This older man I met is not the sort of person I would have picked out to talk to on the street. He has a rough Irish edge to him, with quite the thick accent; a little intimidating at first glance. I am thankful that sometimes God has you cross paths with unlikely people. It was a bit like walking with Jesus today, if you know what I mean?
Snapshots from my walk:
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