Note: There is much peace and far less conflict in Northern Ireland today than there was in the late 1990's. We give thanks to God and to the people of Northern Ireland and Great Britain for coming to a place where peace has a chance and much of the aggression, killing and the wounding of the National Heart is giving way to healing. The following is in the context of those days, during the late 1990's when a small band of us - some would call us "Conquistadors of the Impossible" were jousting with the enemy of God - the devil - in Northern Ireland in the   meetings that were known as "Fireland".                

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night
in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find
that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous
men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it
possible."
                    - T.E Lawrence, "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom"

Grace and love like mighty rivers

Poured incessant from above

and Heaven's peace and perfect justice

Kissed a guilty world in love

There's another one we sang over and over in Northern Ireland. I'll share the lyrics in a moment, but first, do you recall these, have you ever heard the names?: South Armagh. Lisburn Barracks. Omagh where my friends were killed days    after we left the city. Do you remember or have you heard of Ballyclaire or Londonderry; Coleraine or Antrim, Ballymena, Belfast, Upper Falls Road, Lower Falls Road, Crossmaglen or Enniskillen? Does the name Bessbrookmill mean      anything to you? Do you remember Portadown, or Newtownards? Or Bangor - the Valley of the Angels - where St.    Comgal planted the longest running 24-hour a day house of prayer and worship since the Tabernacle of David in   Jerusalem. Bangor; where three thousand holy men sang and prayed responsively in continual praise and thanks-      giving to God for over two hundred and fifty years. Some say that the influence of this community became the very      basis of modern Western Civilization. In Coleraine a schoolboy went home from school sick and was healed on his      way. Revival came from that healing and swept the land. That was a hundred years ago.

We started in a building constructed in the field where John Wesley preached in Hillsborough. There are cows in the     field now. It's green grass; rolling meadows. The wind whispers over those hills. It's just another "place" but once   Wesley's voice thundered out the grace of God. And we met night after night there and we sang:

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best thought by day or by night
Waking or sleeping Thy presence my light
Be thou my wisdom and Thou my true word
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord
Thou my great Father, I , Thy true son
Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one

Riches I heed not nor man's empty praise
Thou mine inheritance now and always
Thou and thou only first in my heart
High King of heaven my treasure Thou art
High King of heaven my victory won
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's Sun
Heart of my own heart whatever befall
Still be my vision O Ruler of all

I wrote in my journal in those days: "And now the pain; the broken lives and destroyed families. The distrust and the    ache that rises up when cemeteries are passed by. Religion is a killer. Jesus is the Healer. Northern Ireland, America, England, the Republic of Ireland, Wales, Germany, Croatia, Latvia, the World needs a Harbor and not a Holy Hierarchy. The earth cries for a Refuge and not the cloak and the cancer of Religion. There is a generation that calls forth the Dreamers of the Day. A people, young, unspoiled, untouched by the edicts of spiritual politicism and untainted by the deadly stupor of a lifeless Institutionalism languishes, cries for the Fathers, looks to you and to me to find not merely Dreamers, but Doers of His Word in this hour.

. . . . the dreamers of the day are dangerous
men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it
possible.

I think we must do it. I think someone must do it. I think the time of aimless dreaming, of pointless scheming is past. I think we must act on our dreams with open eyes; make it possible for the generation - for this generation.

Greg