“It is winter in Narnia and has been for ever so long … Always winter, but never Christmas,” the faun Mr. Tumnus responds to the despair of Lucy Pevensie in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Haunting, beautiful, and powerful imagery that author C.S. Lewis used to describe life in Narnia under the White Witch. Imagery that I loved, but will now confess, I had never really understood, until God called me to minister in the place that is now home.
Winter is not simply the weather; it is the horizon of possibility in which spring is no longer possible, and the hope of new beginnings has been buried under winter snow.
Even though I am from the countryside, I have always loved the city. In the last four years of my life, as I have had the privilege of ministering in North Belfast, I have begun to wrestle with the poverty of hope; a poverty born when the imagination is buried because of the heavy snow of the lasting winter. Indeed, this city has shaken in the last few months as…
