Everything Under The Sun: Compassion Comes To Belfast

Friday, July 29, 2016

Compassion Comes To Belfast

This is the goal of Compassionate Belfast.

Think back a few decades. Remember how divided Belfast and Northern Ireland was? Organizations representing two different visions were fighting each other and people were dying in the conflict. Compassion was not a word that would even be in the same sentence as Belfast.

Fast forward to this year, the month of May, and there is a whole new vision, a vision so different that Belfast has held a series of meetings to make Belfast a City of Compassion. Essentially, these meetings drew up an action plan to make compassionate action a core component of the city and the surrounding area.

Frank Liddy, the Chairperson of Compassion City of Belfast and also Co-Founding Director of Belfast Mindfulness Centre, explained, "Here in Belfast we have four quarters to our city and due to our troubled past, each quarter more or less remains separate in a once divided city. The sad news is that these sometimes quarters were separated by what [are] called the peace walls or lines...the West was predominantly aligned to Green/Republicanism and Nationalist/Catholic, the East would be seen as Orange/Protestant/Loyalist, the North would have been described as a patchwork area of both Protestant/Catholic and other (the North of the city also experienced the most loss through the troubles), and the South of the city was a neutral area and a more affluent area."

One board member was designated as host and another was support for each event in each section of the city. First, there was a video that explained the Compassionate Charter for the city, then broke up into smaller groups that discussed the meaning of compassion and what Belfast would look like as a compassionate city. Then the group came back together and was shown a video on The Golden Rule to end the workshop sessions on a positive note.

Mr. Liddy discussed what happened in the workshops, "Compassion was put on the agenda for folk to look at in a new way; with new eyes and ears, hearts and minds." He was impressed with the openness with which people were able to discuss the meaning of compassion, and there was an atmosphere of safety. He was impressed with"[t]he diversity and many lenses of perception that enable and allow folk to explore Compassion."

Belfast's children pick up on the meaning of compassion.

This series of events was just the beginning; they laid the groundwork upon which further connections and progress can be made. As Mr. Libby said, "As a city in post conflict, I believe that compassion is the flower of our city's suffering." And that means that beauty can come from these new alliances and create a whole new atmosphere of fellowship.