Â鶹ԼÅÄ

Good morning.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

My wife’s daily train journey to work in Belfast passes the yard of a military or police depot of some kind where for the past five years she has been trying to identify a large pile of rectangular Perspex boards. ÌýI made the trip with her recently for the very first time and there they were: rack upon rack of these man-sized, plastic sheets.Ìý To my eye they were instantly recognisable as riot shields but then, unlike my wife, I grew up in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Northern Ireland.

Ìý

On a personal, even spiritual level our view of the world is something most of us probably feel we can inform and change.Ìý The world’s view of us and where we come from, may be another matter.Ìý On this day in 1985 a woman called Cherry Groce Ìýwas accidentally shot and seriously injured by armed police officers on an early morning house search in Brixton, south London.

The community violence which exploded that night has became part of the social narrative of twentieth century Britain.

Ìý

If the phrase ‘race riot’ remains synonymous with certain parts of some English cities, then what has become known here as the ‘recreational riot’ would seem to be Belfast’s contribution to the civil unrest lexicon.

Ìý

Though clearly, wherever people take to the streets in lawless anger,

the last thing on their minds is what the watching world will think of them

and how long that unfortunate association will continue to linger.

Ìý

Father God, whose Son Jesus Christ was condemned by the baying of a mob, we hold before you today those places where unease runs dangerously high, and where all we can do is pray that in time opportunity and optimism may take the place of dejection and despair. Amen