Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-6-25

Around 20 years ago I lost my daughter Emily. Language gets a little funny here, so I must quickly explain that we lost her to the people of Ireland. Specifically, Northern Ireland. More specifically, to the city of Londonderry. To be even more specific, she was lost – language is indeed funny: I mean found – to the divided city of Londonderry / Derry, a city split down the middle, half in Ulster (the United Kingdom) and half in the Republic of Ireland. Micro-focus: to the neighborhoods and streets of that troubled city where for generations people had hated and fought and killed each other.

“Troubled” city: the so-called sectarian violence that divided neighborhoods and divided families and whose trademark was a “Bloody Sunday.” That day was merely the most populous and extreme example of decades of thousands of deaths and many more thousands of people, including children, inoculated with hatred. Catholics and Protestants did not debate theology; “religion-inspired resentments” is non-funny language; after centuries of national rivalries and cultural strife, hate can become a habit.

It was to that city of Londonderry / Derry, and that crying need for healing and reconciliation, that Emily traveled. She had felt the call of missions work as a little girl, and served on trips to Central America, Russia, and eventually to Northern Ireland through the help of our friend Paula Hays. Emily went on one trip; followed later on another, and after deciding to locate in Derry, invited other believers from America including my other daughter Heather, who took her church youth group on a missions trip.

Emily’s ministry often involved seeking out street kids or youths when the pubs closed, offering coffee, friendship, and Jesus… not denominational pitches. In this work she met Norman McCorkell. They fell in love, attended the Irish Bible Institute in Dublin together, and married, gracing me with two wonderful grandchildren.

Emily did not know it, but she was to duplicate a path traveled by Norman’s father, ironically but in a similar way.

Norman McCorkell Sr., had been a fireman in the Fire Brigades in Derry. Prosaic work, you might think, naturally somewhat physical. But during the “Troubles,” there were fires everywhere, many set by arsonists and terrorists. Car bombs. Stores set afire. Not infrequently, police and firemen were targets of snipers. I have met friends and relatives of the McCorkells who lost family members, even saw relatives killed, during these times. It was, perhaps, a blessing in disguise when Norman Sr was diagnosed with a heart problem and forced to retire.

Did I say that language can be funny? Norman, ex-fireman, did not go from the frying pan into the fire, but vice-versa. He became a worker, eventually a leader, with Prison Fellowship, the missions organization founded by Chuck Colson in America. For 29 years he visited prisons in his area, preaching from the pulpit, conducting Bible studies, holding meetings. Several new health problems overtook him, and he retired from active ministry; and he died last week.

(photo by Elsie McCorkell)

Since COVID, I have not made a trip to Derry to see the generations of McCorkells. I will surely miss Norman Sr., who was fun to talk to, ready with smiles and winks, could be earnest about his faith – he gifted me with local Prison Fellowship materials – and his love, common in Ireland, of American Country Music. Sadly, I never was able to manage a trip to Nashville for (and with!) him…

I watched a video feed of Norman’s memorial service in the Kilfennan Church. It was a beautiful and traditional service with hymns and Psalm readings and a moving sermon. One of Norman’s associates, introduced only as Jerry, shared some personal aspects of witnessing to prisoners, sharing God’s love and Christ’s compassion, and offering hope.

He spoke of Norman’s lack of hesitation to enter cells alone, to meet difficult inmates, to pray with hardened men.

He spoke of Norman’s “grand manner” of putting people at ease; of soft words, for instance instead of good-byes, asking “Would you mind if we just said a little prayer?” and “Can I just tell you today that God loves you?”

He spoke of what seemed to be Norman’s favorite word. To me, it sounded like “we.” But this is Ireland; the word was “wee” – as in “Can we have a wee word…?” or to a friend like Jerry in the beginning, “Can I ask a wee favor of you…” that led to his own decades-long volunteer work.

He spoke of Norman’s habitual mode of pursuit: pursuing God to grant blessings; pursuing friends to join the ministry; pursuing prisoners so to share the love of God.

He spoke of the prison ministry that expanded beyond Norman’s appointed hours and confines of prison walls. Follow-ups… mentoring… prayer times… contacts after prisoners’ releases.

In the congregation were quiet witnesses – the man who led Norman to faith years earlier; released prisoners who are leading productive lives; and converted followers of Christ, all because of Norman’s work.

Jerry mentioned one of Norman’s favorite Bible verses. Matthew 12:20 expanded on Isaiah’s words, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench,” until He brings justice to victory.… It is a verse that inspired the title of a recent book by my friend Becky Spencer, and is a comfort to the downtrodden. In the words of a country song, victims of life’s circumstances.

Mentioning country music, this humble servant’s funeral service ended, after several ancient and reverent hymns, with loudspeakers playing out Sonya Isaac’s country hit “Only Jesus Loves You More Than I Do.”

Amid the memories and verses and music was the over-arching sense of the verse from Matthew 25, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” What a blessing if such can be said of any of us when we pass! What a challenge for the work we who remain must do.

Little is much – even, and specifically, those wee efforts – when God is in it.

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