ALL PEOPLE MATTER TO GOD ALL THE TIME

Crumlin Road Presbyterian location

As a child I went to two primary schools: the first one was in Danube Street just a few doors up from my granny's shop and the other was Cliftonville Primary. The head teacher in my time at Cliftonville was Mr McLaughlin and the two teachers most etched on my memory were Mrs McGaughy and Mrs Flanaghan. I remember Mrs McGaughy because I experienced her "discipline" all too often and Mrs Flanaghan , partly because that was a happy time but also because her classroom was different. My memory tells me that it was a semi-circle of glass and so was a very bright place to be.

When I begin to think back the memories come to the fore - it was a year when my friend at that time and myself looked longingly at one of the girls in the class but she was much cleverer than either of us. We played kiss-tag in the playground and sometimes we even followed her home but the relationship never developed any further. Then I remember the injustice we boys felt because our toilets were outside while the girls were inside the school! Every morning about 11am the senior boys of the school would come round with a crate of school milk, free to everyone. I'm sure that some people will remember those 1/3 pint bottles with milk which was cold in the winter and warm in the summer, enough to put some people off for life.

If you remember the milk of those days you will remember that the cream was always at the top of the botttle and so the custom was to give the bottle a shake so that the cream was mixed though with the rest of the milk. Some people, on the other hand, liked to drink the cream off first. Today our children do not get any free milk and there is a variety of milk to choose from. Go to the shop now and you have to choose from "whole milk", "semi-skimmed milk", "skimmed milk" and even "1% Milk".

When I look at our society today I see much the same kind of divisions. The United Kingdom and Ireland is quickly coming to look like that plural society that many have talked about for some time. I recently heard that there are over 60 different languages spoken in Northern Ireland today [ not to mention Irish and Ulster Scots]. That being so we have to ask the question: what do we want our society to look like? Do we want to see people keeping to their own territory or do we want to become like the homogenised milk where everyone is mixed together? We often talk today about a growing ethnicity within our society and when you register for the doctor today you are asked to complete a form which deals with your own ethnic origins. Few people want to see a society were there are ethnic ghettoes of people but would prefer one where it is possible to be different yet respectful of others. Jesus did not recognise ethnicity just people and people matter to God and to His son and to His people. This is certainly a more difficult road to travel because each of us has our own political, social and traditional zones of interest but the rewards of a society where people are the primary importance is a society worth having.

Jesus never forced people to believe and it is no different today but he loved people because they mattered to him. He was not judgmental or patronising but caring. In Sunday school we used to sing, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children in the world red and Yellow, black and white all are precious in his sight Jesus loves the little children of the world". And its not just the children either but the men and women as well, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the protestants and the Catholics. the Hindus and the Jews and He is "not willing than any should perish but that all SHOULD come to eternal life".