A few days before we left for Ireland we received an email from an old friend we had not seen in about 30 years. She asked, “Are you ever back in Ireland? If so I would love to reconnect.”
We told her we were coming the next week and would love to see her. She told us she had just moved to a new house just a short distance from the house the Lord had provided for us on the ‘other side’ of Belfast we were destined to get to know.
Her name was Norah. She called round shortly after we arrived, and four of us shared and worshipped and prayed in the peaceful garden at what later transpired to be, the beginning of the BE-LEAK Mug Club. I sensed that her name contained a message for us, and saw it as NOAH with an R for Rainbow right in the middle – the sign of the covenant God made with Noah and the whole earth after the flood that destroyed the world that had been.
Norah brought with her a gift. It was a yellow rose. But this was not just any rose. It was the only rose I was familiar with. I remember as a boy my father, who loved roses, excitedly sharing his delight with me in the wonderful scent of…..
“PEACE”
One day I noticed a rainbow out the back window, and took the above photo. It was only later I realized the end of the rainbow comes down over the little table were the four of us had met.
…..God’s ‘pot of gold’ at the end of His rainbow in Ireland!
The next week we moved up the garden to accommodate around the larger table, the larger group. Then for the final gathering Norah offered her home. It was on the far side of a little village called EDEN.
Cycling through the village a few days earlier I had noticed a road sign…..
I was so taken with the name, I circled around thinking to take this photo. I started to dismount, and then, unaccountably… I stumbled and fell to the side walk!! The connection was not lost on me that it was in The Garden of Eden that the first fall occurred!
15 was the average number at each gathering. In the story of Noah the waters covered the mountains by 15 cubits and the waters abated after 150 days. the 15th time Noah is mentioned in the bible is in Gen 7:7, which describes he and his family entering the ark.
The number 15 is associated with coming to REST and then a NEW DIRECTION. It was a new direction not only for Noah’s family , but for the whole earth as well!
I was lead to sing a song I wrote years ago inspired by an American in an Irish pub in Minneapolis who shouted out to me one day, “Can you sing, “Stairway to Heaven”?
That quip was the inspiration for A Bridge,***
“Can we find a bridge to the future?
Can we find a bridge to the past?
Can a man hold back what is destined to come?
Or a man hold on to what is past and gone?
Can we find a stairway to heaven, for this earth grows weary and sore?
Can we find a way BACK TO EDEN, so that earth can know heaven once more?
Some say that bridge is a person
Others say it’s the barrel of a gun
Some say that bridge is built with dollars
Others say, “No, it’s built with an eloquent tongue”
But our hope is in God the Almighty
And our help is in what he has done.
And out trust in the Word he has spoken.
It’s the truth that can lead us all home
For that Word is a bridge to the future
And that Word is a bridge to the past
Reaching forward to all we are meant to become
Reaching back to the past, redeeming what we’ve done
And that Word is a stairway to heaven
Reaching up, reaching down, making ONE
For that Word is the story God has written
And the book is called Christ Jesus the Son.
Yes, and He is our way BEYOND EDEN
So that earth can know heaven again
Yes, and He is the hope for this nation
For He’s King of this “heavenly realm“
As I sang this song I knew I was singing it for ‘this nation’ of Ireland, but also for our adopted home nation of America, for the name America (from Amel and Reich), means ‘heavenly kingdom’ ……indeed it encompasses the whole earth, for the Pilgrim Father’s prayer was, “Thy kingdom come thy will be done on this part of earth, and then from this part of earth to the uttermost parts of the earth, as it is in heaven.“ This prayer is, even now, being answered – no matter how bad things may appear to the natural eye!
This proved to be the bookend of that first meeting with Norah and her Peace rose gift, for she took us out through the back door and there was the BEYOND EDEN message, for Restoration is not just getting things back to the way they were, but back to the way they are meant to be.
…..as we anticipate The Coming of the Prince of PEACE.
*** The Voyage of the Bright Hostage and The Flame CDs