Anseo
I remember celebrating St Patrick’s day as an American child. Wear green or you’ll be pinched. Learning about St. Patrick. Green rivers, green beer. “Kiss me I’m Irish.” We dyed my dad’s grits green one year. Everyone in the world pretends to be Irish for the day, for the fun.
This Patrick’s Day, we heard Tadhg’s first Irish word. There was no real reason for him to say it at that moment, but he happily said the phrase he evidently says everyday during role call at playschool. “Tadhg Clarke?” “Anseo!” I’m present. I’m here.
Suddenly, amid the boys’ green rugby jerseys and our day off, things came sharply into focus for me. What we’re called to be as missionaries is “anseo”—present. Here. on Patrick’s day, we are to identify with this nation: feeling Irish wounds, Irish sadnesses, Irish hope. We’re even answering the call by just being here when so many have left. There is a stark fact of Irish history: 39% of those who’d been born in Ireland were living abroad by 1890. Millions had died untimely deaths as well during the famine of the 1840’s & 50’s(“the Great Hunger,”) and the persisting bad economy drove millions of the rest out. It was usually the young, the best, the brightest who left, or at least who survived the long boat journeys to the States or Australia. The waves of Irish immigration did not end until the 1990’s when the Irish economy began to recover. Now, they are beginning again, bad economy driving out the young, the best, the brightest. Missionaries are leaving in large numbers because of a shift in visa laws.
But we are present. We are here.
Present in the midst of the suffering—and we feel the bite too as wages are radically cut and taxes raised, house prices plummet, killings and riots rise up in the North again, even basic public services are predicted to begin failing. Its our friends and family who are rapidly losing their jobs and unable to find new ones, wondering how they will pay mortgages for houses worth half what they paid a year ago. People we know and love are leaving for the middle east, Australia and places further still in search of work.
Present in the future as our team plans how to end MAP Ireland well, how it will work when I stay and MAP leaves.
Present even in the past as we try to unravel history in the hope of understanding today a bit better. Its our job as missionaries, and its our hearts–feeling the hurts, taking them on as our own, because they are our own now.
When I first felt called to missions, I remember assuming I would go to Africa. That seemed like the “real”missionary calling: a place where you would suffer with the people. There would be deprivations, struggles, sacrifices, and yet the exuberance of African worship too.
The reality of being a missionary in Ireland has always held struggle and sacrifice for me in innumerable ways, but it seems even more so now. I have a deep, even inextricable connection with the joy but also the sadness, the hardships and the longing of Ireland. Wearing green on St. Patrick’s day was just pretending. As a missionary in Ireland, I am called to be green throughout the year, throughout my mind, my body, my worship, my family, my work, my life. I’m called to be present.
Anseo.
