Peace

I have been doing a terrible job of keeping up with current events lately and this is especially bad since Jake makes a point to watch ABC News every evening. Typically, I am somewhere in the process of making Declan dinner, making our dinner, bathing him, playing with him, cleaning up and other things of that nature. I tend not to settle in front of the TV until he's in bed and by then we're watching Jeopardy. I completely missed that the latest G8 Summit in July was held in Northern Ireland. I've had this little piece of the world tucked away in my heart since we visited in 2008. President Obama addressed a large group of young people there prior to the summit and I got a chance to read the Guardian's recap of that earlier this week. It brought tears to my eyes, although I will preface that by commenting that many, many things bring tears to my eyes these days for some reason. It's worse than when I was pregnant.

Currently the first generation of people in Northern Ireland that were born after the official (but not full) end of "The Troubles" is coming into adulthood. This is a very important milestone in the peace process and the President urged them to "do it right". He said:

"We need you to get this right," he said. "You set an example for those who seek a peace of their own, people gripped in conflict. They know something better is out there. To put aside the violence."

"They are studying what you are doing and wondering perhaps that if Northern Ireland can achieve peace then we can too. You are their blueprint to follow." 

Those are very powerful words and they are true. There is still a lot of work to be done but I can only hope that the next time I visit Belfast (and there will be a next time) it will be just as safe for me to do so as it was the first time, and all of the murals dotting areas of the city, and the city of Derry as well, will be murals depicting scenes of peace.

Time for me to start doing a better job of keeping up with what's going on in the world.