I was conscious of beginning the journey when I was very young. Our street,  Commedagh Drive (named after a mountain) backed on to a very large field; in the center of the field was a river, enveloped by banks of blackberry bushes and trees with strong branches from which, back in the fifties, all the children from Commedagh and Bearnagh Drive would swing during the hot summer holidays. I remember one day in particular sitting alone down by the river watching it as it passed through on its way to the Lagan; I  wondered where its journey began but as a child I only guessed that it started off from the Black mountain and passed through Andersonstown. My senses were tuned into the steady sound of the water as it continued on its journey; sometime later with the warm sun on my back I took off my shoes and dangled my feet in the cool, clear water. It struck me then that there seemed to be no end to this water. It just kept coming; I didnít know how this was happening, but it was real and it was amazing; I just knew that like the sun on my back, it was there!

  I remember our teacher, Miss Shields from St Teresa's, telling us that God's love had no beginning and no end, that God always was and always will be. So watching the river and knowing that no one was making it flow, I understood what our teacher had told us. It all seemed so natural.

  My faith in God's love and mercy have remained as full of wonder and beauty for me today as it did on that summer's day all those years ago. The river is covered over now and the field was made into a playing pitch covered with soft mud material; but when the rain is heavy the river swells and can still be heard as it rushes on its journey to the Lagan; I listen for it as I make my way daily up the path that leads on to the pitch. If you don't listen for it, you won't hear it. Like our faith in God, sometimes we over shadow it; to see and hear God in our lives we must keep ourselves tuned in on whatever wave length has connected us to God.

  Sometimes my favorite wavelength (the Catholic Church) has so much interference on its air ways that I've felt like disconnecting and tuning in to another station. One such time in my life was when I was interned in Armagh prison. I felt I had been deserted and left alone. That feeling of being alone and rejected by those we love, believe in and share the same faith with is a devestating experience for any human being to go through. In my cell, I wrote a poem.