10/8 Day 20: Ireland – Into the West

(Written at the Killarney internet café in between 10am 11/8)
It took me all morning to make my way from Knock to Dingle, the westernmost peninsula of Ireland. It was a beautiful drive through flower covered hills with far vistas of a patchwork of walled in grass fields where sheep grazing here and there.

When I got to the outermost edge the 2000 tourists I saw in the North were there before me. But I did not allow this to stop me this time. I parked and climbed over the last hill to the farthest side. There had been some violence done to the earth here when God formed it all and sedimentary layers of stone had been turned on their side, causing jagged pieces of rock to stick out everywhere. There was nothing flat to sit on for miles, and I was wondering where He was planning for me to wait for him when a saw a flat stone perched in an isolated place very close to the edge.

I sat down and waited. With all the wild frozen violence around me I became intensely aware of God’s strength and wildness. There is nothing predictable about Him or how He does things. Even though we can know He will always be good and righteous the road we walk with Him does not conform to our idea of regular.

He started speaking about the banner Trudy saw, and His banner of Love over His church. There is a whole misunderstanding it seems about the equation between love and comfort/safety. Jesus had to be able to say to the Father ‘I will love you even though you slay me’. And really becoming one with Him involves becoming one with Him in the suffering of the cross.

As I sat there looking at the way the waves were battering the rocks I started understanding another implication of this prayer I am praying for the revelation of the Sons of God: creation is crying out and the Creator is getting ready to answer its prayer. If we are the Sons of God, are we ready to be revealed? Whatever that implies… Are we really ready to take up our cross and follow Him?

He spent much time talking to me about being a Son of God and the way the enemy works against the revelation of this fact in the minds and hearts of God’s children.

As I was sitting at the edge the rain was moving like a curtain around the tip where I was sitting but it never fell on me. Only when I was back in the car did it suddenly pour down. I turned my back to the afternoon sun and drove east towards Killarney. About halfway back along the Dingle Peninsula the sun came out behind me and made a complete double rainbow over the way I was going. The wild God was telling me He loves me wildly.

I had been in Killarney in 1997 on a short tour and I was hoping to find a space in the youth hostel. But the rest of the 2000’s family was here, so I was forced back into a B&B. This is not such a bad arrangement because even though it might cost a bit more I have been surviving on the high-protein breakfasts they give me and one muesli meal a day since I came to Scotland.