Belfast and Peace-building, the World Cup and Xenophobia, Iran and Epstein (July 11, 2026)

Photo: How we differ, according to the Derry Girls.

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Good morning friends!

I am grinding the beans, enjoying Deep Time Coffee, the Costa Rica blend. It is delicious. I hope you are staying cool in the depths of the summer heat.

I arrived home from Belfast, Northern Ireland late in the week. We were there to learn about peace-building, non-violence, how politics distorts religion, legacies of racism and how we can work together for a better future. We had conversations with ordinary people who had moved through loss, hatred, and imprisonment on both sides of the Troubles into lives of what I would call convicted humility and constructive engagement through realistic work on peace everyday.

I have been coming to Belfast almost every year since 2013, when I made the journey with Rev. Bill Barnes, then lead pastor of St Luke’s UMC in Orlando. Since then I’ve made the journey with several cohorts from Florida and Western North Carolina. I would say the number is approaching 100 spiritual leaders, lay and clergy. Many have taken what they’ve learned here in the cause of prophetic preaching, training in justice and anti-racism, leadership in educational institutions, cross-racial friendships, public service and dialogue across our own differences, which are increasingly hardened and bordering on violence. And I would say it causes me to reflect on the violence that lives within me.

Photo above: The peace process is something we work on every day.

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I am too close to what we experienced to share more fully–I do need to process it–but I give thanks for the relationships, especially with Gary and Joyce Mason of Rethinking Conflict, and John Brewer of Queen’s University. I was able to preach at Knock Methodist Church in Belfast, my second time there, and we met a new colleague, Karen Campbell, a musician and director of the Irish Council of Churches, who led us in the singing of psalms of lament which have been field tested in communities that have experienced particularly deep trauma.

Our cohort included pastors, district superintendents and conference staff, a non-profit executive, a leader of a caucus group, a professor of music and an immigration attorney, clergy and laity. The conversation within our group was an essential gift of the journey. And my deep thanks to Rev. Beth Crissman, director of WNC peacebuilding ministries, who coordinated our journey there.

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I realize I have been through a stretch that has included the Ordination Pilgrimage to England, the Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope in Cherokee, the Western North Carolina Annual Conference and the Rethinking Conflict Cohort in Belfast. These have been rich experiences, all of them deep expressions of Christian discipleship, all of them responsive to historic experiences of either racism (Wilberforce) or exclusion (the restoration of Lauren Scruggs’ orders) or genocide (Cherokee) or violence and sectarianism (Belfast), and sometimes the intersectionality of these.

Colleague Bishops LaTrellle Easterling and Christian Alsted blessed us at the Western North Carolina Annual Conference.

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These experiences have taken me more deeply into conversations with many people, some who recognize progress, others who grieve the injustices and the losses, yet others who are finding their voices to speak the truth in love in fresh ways. This in itself is a lot to process. I am coming out of an intense season of exploring difference.

So the summer offers some time for reflection, and I plan to slow down and engage in a bit of this. I have a writing project planned with Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson, and another with Dr. Gary Mason about some of this. Writing for me is a form of reflection. I hope these days provide the same kind of space for you.

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According to the Watson School at Brown University, the war initiated by the U.S. and Israel has cost us $67 billion thus far. The Pentagon report stated the military operations are at a cost of $111 billion. In February, 2025 then attorney general Pam Bondi said the Epstein human trafficking list was sitting on her desk. For your own research, visit the wikipedia page about the relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. And of course the price of oil and gas remains high, which affects the transportation of food.

For me, attention to these realities is not partisan. We each have a stake in coming together, living more peaceably and decently, and bearing each other’s burdens.

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I am loving the World Cup matches, even as my actual knowledge of the rules and strategy of soccer is minimal. It is very hard to be a sports fan and xenophobic at the same time. Think Victor Wembanyama, Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuna, Vlad Guerrero. Jannik Sinner, Erling Haaland, Luka Doncic, Naomi Osaka.

I will be watching Norway and England in the World Cup later today, thinking of close friends Martyn Atkins and Christian Alsted. And today and tomorrow I will watch the Wimbledon women’s and men’s finals. Beyond all of this in the coming days, I will return to a single-minded focus on baseball. The Rays and the Braves are both in first place in their divisions.

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In June I had scheduled most all of my annual medical appointments and I give thanks to God for three things:

1. Access to health care. I do believe that health care is a human right, but that right is not available to everyone.

2. Really good human beings who are medical professionals and take the time in their busy schedules to practice curiosity–I am blessed here.

3. Very positive results. I don’t take the gift of health for granted and spend consistent time interceding for those with illness and injury.

I look forward to spending time with my family this summer. We will see both daughters and the granddaughters and my sister and brother. In the summer I work more from the mountain area of our annual conference, which is the migratory pattern of many people and a respite from the heat. And it has the added benefit of connecting with many friends who make their way here (keep coming!). We recently watched the final episodes of Grantchester (PBS). In the end, it is about faith, family and friends. Heaven.

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I am still adjusting back to the eastern time zone, so I will come to a conclusion here. Thank you for reading and commenting! Thank you for subscribing, recommending and sharing. And mostly thank you for your friendship and the connection.