Kevin Barry Cheered Me Up Courtesy Irish Times

Tuesday 4^th December 2012

I have a confession to make.  I’m addicted to physically buying the newspaper each day, the Irish Times to be precise.  It’s really just habit I suppose but a habit that’s hard to break.

I know it’s possible to find the various articles on line and I keep telling myself this is ridiculous when I start saving a couple of days papers to catch up on articles with a heading that I know will interest me.

The first port of call is the crossword, the easier one and then I usually have to get tomorrow’s paper to check up the clues that eluded me in the previous day’s puzzle.

However today I refer back to yesterday’s Irish Times and am fascinated to see that the writer Kevin Barry  admits that;  ‘A little flush of triumph comes to my cheek if I manage to email someone a photo, or paste a link into the body of a mail – this, after 18 years of internet activity, is the level of it.’

What music to my ears, to read that a bright young spark such as Kevin Barry is proud of his fairly limited skills on the internet.  This makes me, a fifty seven year old woman feel a lot better. Thank you, Kevin.

He also very interestingly sets out very clearly two extreme and contrary arguments regarding the online divide and says that he believes both positions to be entirely true.  Thank you once again Kevin.

I was beginning to think that this was some major flaw in my character that I can very often manage to agree with two opposing sides of an argument.  Being like this does not make life easy, and in fact there are times when I would love to have a more clear cut black and white view of everything.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2012/1203/1224327385679.html

The Pros and Cons of Technology

Monday 3^rd December

My post yesterday spoke about the relentless changes that have come about through technology.  It has brought so many benefits, and yet in some ways I feel something has been lost.

Someone once said to me ‘you just don’t like change do you?’   I suppose in a way familiarity is comforting, but when changes keep taking place, it can be difficult to keep up with all these changes.

I often look back nostalgically to a time when if you had a problem about some product or service, you could ring a number to a central switch board where a real human being would answer your call, and transfer you to speak to another real  human being, but these days you get mostly, press one, for such and such, two, for this and that, three for whatever and so on.

I often think of all the people who’ve been disposed of because using machines is more cost effective, and I recently read that even in a household instead of people sitting around a fire like times past talking to one another, now everyone sits in their own room communicating with others on their lap tops on social sites, we have never been so connected and yet we have never been so isolated and apart.

Virtual communication has so many limitations, but one thing that is certain, we cannot turn back the clock.

But of course I must equally acknowledge all the benefits, the wonderful friends I have made through a shared interest of writing and the publishing opportunities that have opened up for me.

A Little Bit of Humour Helps

Sunday 2nd December

I’ve already said how Saturday was a bleak day for me, and so I approach Sunday gingerly. I did not sleep all night long, not a complaint I normally have.

I’m not sure whether disaster awaits me. I have convinced myself that from the way the computer was acting last night, and the fact that I had to unplug it and reboot, I’m convinced that I have probably lost everything, but all I’ve lost was just the one short piece of work I was typing when it crashed.

I say a short pleading prayer of desperation, all the time thinking of Peter McVerry’s no nonsense attitude to people who wish God to do their bidding, ‘God is not a magician’, he’s saying this in the context that miracles prove nothing, and that the God that Jesus reveals is a God of compassion and that we can’t shape him around our whims and desires, but I earnestly plead that today will be a better day than yesterday and that some of the problems I was having yesterday will be resolved. I’m hoping and praying for this positive outcome and not really believing that things will be better today, so you can’t say that this is mind over matter, or just luck or chance, because beyond my wildest expectations, everything today is better than fine, and not only that, I eventually after much blood and tears and toil and sweat at last I’ve managed to find the elusive setting to edit the blog which had so defeated me yesterday.

Technology is wonderful and has many benefits, but I have to admit I had to go kicking and screaming into the twenty first century. The pace of change has been relentless, but it helps to have a sense of humour as well of course as a little bit of Divine intervention and so I dedicate this poem to the person who gave me not only IT training but a wonderful life coaching session which helped me on my journey, so thank you Richard.


The Soft Return

For the purposes of writing my poetry,
I ask Mr. Richard Butler, ECDL tutor,
life coach,and neuro linguistic programmer,
“how do I avoid capitalising the first word
of each new line?

“Just hold down the shift key and press return,
it’s called a soft return, you could also back space
in front of the first letter.”

Well the back space I’d figured out
myself, Richard
but I do not like the little green squiggle
that follows the back space option,
I prefer your soft return
it is simply more efficient,

it cuts to the chase Mr. Butler,
ECDL tutor, life coach and neuro linguistic programmer.
So as I sit in a class of twenty or thereabouts
we watch the miracle of technology unfold

Your voice rises above the din,
the mumbo jumbo of almost
twenty competing voices,
your strong vocal tone and superb diction
happily transcending this babble of bedlam

“Just click in any white space,
check where your insertion point is “
to a ripple of suggestive titters
enjoyed and taken by you good humouredly
“and remember garbage in and garbage out”

On and on we go
on our voyage of discovery
megabyte, gigabyte, kilobyte,
bits and bytes
and not forgetting poor old
lan and wan


Now, since we’re Dubs
mention of Wan
leads to the smart ass quip
“Who’s your wan”?

While realising the microchip was surely
the greatest invention of the 20th century ,
I have come to realise alas
that for some of us who arrived
before it’s invention, the joy of this ECDL
course has not been without its moments of anguish,

I’ve been known to let fly the odd oath or two,
“Rachael is your poetry always full of profanities?
You say this in amused astonishment
until you decide that
a stern look and a single utterance of RACHAEL
might be a better strategy;

Oh, it does the trick alright
you know what you’re about don’t you?
Mr. Richard Butler, ECDL tutor,
life coach and neuro linguistic programmer;

Now the awful words swim around
my head, examination words like
ICS-skills.net, oh and I forgot to mention
ram and rom and that’s before I get my head around
diagnostic and invigilator,

and of course, the day of reckoning comes,
the test
“now click start, off you go and good luck”.

With trembling fingers and thudding heartbeat
I dare not look, but the message of success
flashes on the screen
Congratulations, you passed

So, here’s to you, Mr. Richard Butler,
ECDL tutor, life coach and neuro linguistic programmer
I raise my coffee cup to you and your soft return.

ECDL: European Computer Driving Licence (Yes that’s me in the driving seat)

LAN: Local Area Network
WAN: Wide Area Network
BITS AND BYTES: I suggest you google this otherwise we might be here all day
DUBS: Short for Dubliners
WHO’S YOUR WAN? An old Dublin witticism uttered when someone is perceived to be getting a bit above themselves.

NEURO LINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_neuro-linguistic_programming

The Right Words At The Right Time

Saturday 1^st December

Did you ever have one of those days where everything seems to go wrong from start to finish?  Well today I had one of those kind of days.

Later in the evening I talk with a good friend of mine.  She is a regular meditator, and day in day out, year in, year out, rain, hail, snow, Christmas day, every day she never fails to retreat to her special corner and observe the breath (vipassana) and recite the mantra she uses interiorly in rhythm with the breath.  She tells me how life changing it was for her, and I know myself when I see her.  She is always positive, always happy.  She is definitely a good advertisement for daily meditation.

After having had a difficult day, more things go wrong for me in the evening, technical things like the blog I can normally edit won’t seem to bring me into the place where my posts are. I try several times, and then the cursor starts doing a dance across the page.  I can’t control it.  It’s like it’s acting with a mind of its own. Yes, I know that sounds quite comical, and on a good day, I will see the funny side to it,  but not now, not at this particular moment. This final last straw is just too much and I find myself descending into a very dark and bleak place.  It is a hellish place of futility as if I cannot see the point to anything.

Now having been told by my warm and loving mother that Jesus never fails us, I can never ever forgo this gift of faith that has been handed on to me and which lifts me out of such places of  darkness always when I need it most.

I have a bedside book called God Calling, a devotional diary by Two Listeners. It says on the front that it has sold six million copies worldwide, and so I randomly open it trusting and believing it will bring me to a passage that will be relevant and so I open the book not by selecting a particular page and theme, but just allowing myself to be led to wherever or whatever it is I need to see and I am brought to July 7 with the heading  which I would like to share with you whoever or wherever you are on your journey.

Painful Preparation

“Help and peace and joy are here.  Your courage will be rewarded. Painful as this time is you will both one day see the reason of it, and see too that it was not cruel testing but tender preparation for the wonderful life-work you are both to do.

Try to realize that your own prayers are being most wonderfully answered.  Answered in a way that seems painful to you, but that just now is the only way.

Success in the temporal world would not satisfy you.  Great success, in both temporal and spiritual worlds awaits you.

I know you will see this had to be.”

Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.  Matthew Chapter 11: 28 -30

The word yoke in this context means something that binds.

A Little Bit of Magic

Friday 30^th November 2012

Today I wait in a rather large queue at a busy shopping centre.  Already the Christmas rush has started.

The queue is at the gift voucher counter, and though most are probably getting in early with their Christmas shopping, the voucher I want is for a birthday present for my daughter.

I get fidgety,  a will I, won’t I internal dialogue starts, as to whether I should wait in the queue or move on,  until my attention is drawn to the man in front.  He is roughly mid to late sixties and he has a little toddler in his arms.  I’m assuming he is the grandad, though for all I know he could be the father, but somehow I sense it’s a grandfather, grandson relationship.

It is extremely boring standing waiting in a queue, but my time is made easier by my fascination with the interaction between the man and the little boy, who I would put roughly at two years of age.

The little fellow fiddles with Grandad’s ears rather playfully, and Granddad blows back affectionate kisses

It somehow fills my heart with hope and without a doubt, it makes queuing easier.  Before I know it, I’m now at the top of the queue and my business is done and I hold in my heart this little bit of magic that came to me today.

In keeping with today’s theme of the special bond between  grandparents and grandchildren, I’m posting below Seamus Heaney’s poem taken from his collection Human Chain.  It’s called, A Kite for Aibhín (after L’Aquilone’by Giovanni Pascoli 1855-1912) I’m told that this poem was added late to the collection in celebration of the birth of Heaney’s second grand-daughter Aibhín (Aye-veen) born to his son Michael and his wife Emer.

  The happiness of an event from the past is recalled in honour of the family’s new ‘high flyer.’

The poem incorporates the life giving element of, air, pale, blue heavenly.   It conveys the poet being brought back to another time when ‘All of us there trooped out/among the briar hedges and stripped thorn,’ and then there is that skilful comparison of the kite’s string breaking and separating, like the umbilical cord being cut at birth and like the kite taking off, itself alone, a windfall in that final line, so too the new and separate life of his Grand-daughter begins.

A Kite for Aibhín (after L’Aquilone’by Giovanni Pascoli , 1855 – 1912)

Air from another life and time and place,
Pale blue heavenly air is supporting
A white wing beating high against the breeze,

And yes, it is a kite! As when one afternoon
All of us there trooped out
Among the briar hedges and stripped thorn,

I take my stand again, halt opposite
Anahorish Hill to scan the blue,
Back in that field to launch our long-tailed comet.

And now it hovers, tugs, veers, dives askew,
Lifts itself, goes with the wind until
It rises to loud cheers from us below.

Rises, and my hand is like a spindle
Unspooling, the kite a thin-stemmed flower
Climbing and carrying, carrying farther, higher

The longing in the breast and planted feet
And gazing face and heart of the kite flier
Until string breaks and – separate, elate –

The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.

Browsing Through The Book Shelves

Thursday 29^th November 2012

We never really know what a new day brings.  Today as I browsed through my book shelves, I came across a rather brilliant writer by the name of Ben Okri, a Nigerian poet and novelist.  He is also a booker Prize winning author for his novel The Famished Road.

He is described by the critics as someone who makes the essay into an art form and I’m not surprised.  I came across a lot of thought provoking material.  Consider this one:

“Don’t wait till you’re dead to know that in reality the whole of life is on your side.”

The following passages  may not be typical for the so called developed world, but are, sadly a reality still for many others around our world today:

“For essentially, it is love that we are talking about here; love for the better life that could be real for all the people; love for the greater possibilities of the future that are being murdered in the present by short-sighted leaders; love for the greater way, a higher justice that sits in the land like a wise and invisible god; love for better breathing in the beggar and the basket-weaver; love for women who bear all the suffering and wend their ways to deserted marketplaces and who create such small miracles of survival out of the bitter dust of the dying age; love for the children who grow up under a generous sun and who do not know just how distorted and blood-ridden are the futures they will inherit, who play in the streets and at their games while poison and despair gather about them and hover over their heads like the angels of death; love for the regeneration of a people who deserve so much better and who never seem to get any justice or many good days or much hope on this round earth which glows like a miraculous dream, in space, to the astonished gaze of astronauts.”

“There are some things on earth that are stronger than death.  One of these is the eternal human quest for justice; a people cannot live without it, and in due course, they will die to make it possible for their children.  Fables are made of this.  Anyone who can listen, hear me: a writer in Nigeria was executed while seeking a better life for his people;  the consequences of this are incalculable; his name was Ken Saro-Wiwa.”

The above passages are taken from a chapter called (Fables Are Made of This: For Ken Saro-Wiwa: 1941 – 1996) A Way of Being Free (Ben Okri)

The Journey Towards The Authentic Self

Wednesday 28th November 2012

Today I reflect on yesterday’s blog posting with the usual question what will I write about today? I think of my friend Barbara’s appreciative comment and thoughtful posting on facebook  of Maya Angelou’s wonderful picture and reflection dedicated to my daily blog efforts.  Thank you once again Barbara for your encouragement.

It was a struggle for me to be as honest as I was in yesterday’s post, but necessary I feel to strip away the mask.

We learn I think when we are young that it is not always profitable to totally reveal ourselves to others.
My own experience growing up was that it was not always wise to be totally open with people,and so a habit begins where not only we hold back, but we play games and pretend we are,  what we are not, or perhaps we just remain hidden and neutral, never really taking risks, and so very often we endure the frustration  of stagnation.

Also our world promotes competitiveness over co-operation, and so competition I think plays a part in the emergence of a false self.  To survive in this world, means that to an extent we must don a mask and create a false self.  This false self is forever restless and disconnected from one’s true origin, and part of the symptom of this disconnection is our continual distraction with external and visual stimuli.   I once heard someone remark that if ever there was an anthem for our time, it was that song by Mick Jager, ‘I can get no satisfaction.’  St. Augustine expressed it in another way when he said ‘You have made us for yourself O Lord and our heart is restless until it rests in you.’

Back in 2007, I decided to do an evening course in a college close to where I live.  It was a two year diploma in spirituality and the range of topics were fairly broad.  We explored and asked the question what is spirituality.  We agreed it wasn’t easy to give a single definition to such a broad subject, but one of the things I remember from that first exploration was a handout from an excerpt of Michael Paul Gallagher’s book, The Human Poetry of Faith:

“But when I risk staying in touch with my weakness or fear and even more so, if I can communicate what I feel to another person, shadows become thresholds of transformation.” (handout Chapter 3, Dive Deeper, Michael Paul Gallagher)

John Henry Newman, an Anglican Minister in the nineteenth century who converted to Roman Catholicism spoke of avoidance of our human wounds as the reason why our religious beliefs remain so unreal.  In Michael Paul Gallagher’s book, he quotes a passage from a sermon given by Newman on this theme.

“We have each the same secret, and we keep it to ourselves and we fear that as a cause of estrangement, which really would be a bond of union.”  Newman saw this fear of facing our shadows as the root of our shallowness, because we dare not trust each other with the secret of our hearts, our love is not enlarged and our religion, viewed as a social system is hollow.”  Newman seemed to be implying that if God embraces all human woundedness in Christ, we too are invited into a surprising lowering of our defences.

This for me was an extraordinary discovery that a clergyman of the nineteenth century could be so advanced and enlightened in his thinking that he had the wisdom and perception to see that for many religion seems unreal, because of an unwillingness to journey into one’s centre.

Traditionally eastern religion and philosophy has been better at this, from the little I know through my encounter with yoga philosophy.   Institutionalized  Western Christianity has focused too much on externals and religious dogma, and dare I say also literalism.  It is interesting to read one of the definitions of dogma given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is ‘an arrogant declaration of opinion.’ Also on that subject of literalism, during my studies at the Milltown Institute, I came across an interesting statement by a British philosopher called Own Barfield when he said ‘all literalism is idolatry’.

Traditionally we were told idolatry was the worshiping of false gods and we had an image in our heads of people worshiping stone idols, but this for me was a very interesting perception because what he was really saying was that our institutionalized religion had focused very often on stories that really were myths, but were perhaps pointing to a certain lesson or symbolism and so being encouraged to take these stories up literally, we were and  are distracted from the true role of religion which really should be  to create meaning, and put us in touch with not only our inner being but also with one another, our planet and eco system and to encourage us to share in a harmonious and just manner the resources of our world.

  Our task is really to try and create a more intelligent and less destructive system, and the role of religion I think or indeed philosophy is to help us to see that this is an attainable goal.  We are all ultimately seeking happiness, happiness that is deep and lasting, and if we want happiness that is deep and lasting, we have to look at life from a holistic perspective.

When God is continually presented as an external other who is male and a judge, it does not in my opinion help humanity in its search for truth and in the necessary search for self knowledge. God may well be the external other, father figure that he’s presented as, but if he exits he is also in all of the creation and all that he created including myself and there can be no knowledge of this God, this bliss, this felt oneness with all creation, until I come to a knowledge of self, and until I learn to drop what is not of God.

So this brings us to the further question, how can we say what is of God, and what is not of God? Can we even put a name on the unknowable?  Again in the east, the wisdom of enlightenment and self realization says ‘he who speaks has not seen’ and ‘he who sees does not speak.’  God or the absolute as some prefer to call this creator cannot be contained and squeezed into some small narrow human perception of who he, she or it is. Again the wisdom of the east does not favour a faith system, but instead encourages one to explore and journey towards one’s centre.

We see this with the life of Christ that much of the miracles and healing he performed were preceded by his periods of withdrawing to a ‘quiet place’ and he through his life and death show us that his way, truth and life is a way of love far above and beyond the limitations of human love.  It is expressed best as ‘the peace that passes all understanding.’

At times we are shown glimpses of this and sometimes we get a sense of it through certain people who radiate this aura of pure goodness, so much so that even after an encounter with such a person, we are in some way changed or affected by such an encounter.