Week ending 23rd February 2010 www.tourmakeady.com
This year I am doing one of the most difficult things I ever decided to do for Lent. I have given up complaining, and O, Lord how I miss the gripe and the grumble and the gossip. God is delighted, of course, because much of my prayer has tended to give out about this and that, about all that I find wrong with the church and the world. I suspect the Lord hears more of that kind of prayer than any other, people getting stuff off their chests and loading it on top of Calvary’s cross. But he is not complaining. Prayer is what he is there for.
One or two of Jesus’ own prayers were close to the complaining mode, especially when he was under pressure. “My soul is sorrowful to the point of death,” Saint Mark reports him as saying in the garden of Gethsemene (Mk 14:35). “And going on a little further he prayed that if it were possible, this hour might pass him by. Abba (Father)” he prayed: “Everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you, not I, would have it.” (Mk 14:36) Not complaining, maybe, but stressed to the point of sweating blood, trying to avoid the seemingly inevitable suffering and death..
Words Jesus used on the cross seem even more like a complaint: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” They were the words of a psalm he had probably learned in the Synagogue as a youngster, but they were also a heartfelt prayer, almost a cry of despair. I say “almost” because once again he accepted his fate and commended himself to God: “Father into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Lk 23:46) Prayer can take many shapes, from the complaint to the despairing rant to the quiet acceptance, to the shout for joy.
Some of the examples of prayer I like best from the Bible are great characters like Abraham or Noah or Moses arguing with God or trying to strike a bargain with him. I am half expecting to read an account of them spitting on their hands and slapping them together like farmers at a fair. Others are people who won’t take no for answer when asking Jesus for a cure, so that he is almost embarrassed into doing what they ask him. Questioners or doubters like Saint Thomas also appeal to me, or the woman at the well who asks Jesus the blunt question: “You have no bucket. Where are you going to get this water,” as he waxes eloquent about “living water.”
Prayer is what you make of it. Some people are most comfortable with learned prayers and those are fine. Jesus taught the “Lord’s prayer” as such an example and it is probably impossible to better it or the deeply Biblical “Hail Mary.” But we also have minds of our own as well as personal relationships with saints and angels, sons and mother’s of God with whom we feel free to tell it like it is. I have often quoted the prayer from the heart of an old man in Inis Oirr asking God out loud: “An aithníonn tú mé?- Do you recognise me?” We hear now of interactive programmes on computer or television. For many people prayer is interactive. You might not get a reply as such, but you can certainly tell it as you see and feel it.
As for the complaints, watch out, Lord. Lent, as you probably know, ends on Easter Sunday.
One or two of Jesus’ own prayers were close to the complaining mode, especially when he was under pressure. “My soul is sorrowful to the point of death,” Saint Mark reports him as saying in the garden of Gethsemene (Mk 14:35). “And going on a little further he prayed that if it were possible, this hour might pass him by. Abba (Father)” he prayed: “Everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you, not I, would have it.” (Mk 14:36) Not complaining, maybe, but stressed to the point of sweating blood, trying to avoid the seemingly inevitable suffering and death..
Words Jesus used on the cross seem even more like a complaint: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” They were the words of a psalm he had probably learned in the Synagogue as a youngster, but they were also a heartfelt prayer, almost a cry of despair. I say “almost” because once again he accepted his fate and commended himself to God: “Father into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Lk 23:46) Prayer can take many shapes, from the complaint to the despairing rant to the quiet acceptance, to the shout for joy.
Some of the examples of prayer I like best from the Bible are great characters like Abraham or Noah or Moses arguing with God or trying to strike a bargain with him. I am half expecting to read an account of them spitting on their hands and slapping them together like farmers at a fair. Others are people who won’t take no for answer when asking Jesus for a cure, so that he is almost embarrassed into doing what they ask him. Questioners or doubters like Saint Thomas also appeal to me, or the woman at the well who asks Jesus the blunt question: “You have no bucket. Where are you going to get this water,” as he waxes eloquent about “living water.”
Prayer is what you make of it. Some people are most comfortable with learned prayers and those are fine. Jesus taught the “Lord’s prayer” as such an example and it is probably impossible to better it or the deeply Biblical “Hail Mary.” But we also have minds of our own as well as personal relationships with saints and angels, sons and mother’s of God with whom we feel free to tell it like it is. I have often quoted the prayer from the heart of an old man in Inis Oirr asking God out loud: “An aithníonn tú mé?- Do you recognise me?” We hear now of interactive programmes on computer or television. For many people prayer is interactive. You might not get a reply as such, but you can certainly tell it as you see and feel it.
As for the complaints, watch out, Lord. Lent, as you probably know, ends on Easter Sunday.
Week ending 16th February 2010
By the time we are eating our Shrove Tuesday pancakes, Catholics of the Eastern Rite will already be on their second day of Lent. They begin two days earlier than our Ash Wednesday on a day known as ‘Clean Monday.’ The idea is that they begin to clean their spiritual house on that day. I don’t know if they miss out on the pancakes. Perhaps they have a ‘Pancake Sunday o make up for it.’ So while we are dirtying our foreheads with ashes, they are already cleaning up their act. The dirty forehead has to do with cleansing too, taking stock of our lives and trying to do better.
Easter is a moveable feast because it is connected to the timing of Jewish Passover. That was the feast Jesus was celebrating on the night Christians call the ‘Last Supper’ because it occurred on the night before he was crucified. That was the night that the Jewish pass-over of the Red Sea from slavery in Egypt is celebrated. The date was and is connected to the time of the full moon because of the moon’s effect on tides. The seemingly miraculous parting of the water which allowed the Israelites to escape was probably the effect of the spring tide when low water is at its lowest and high-tide at its highest, as anyone who ever lived near the sea will be aware.
Our Easter date, and therefore Ash Wednesday about forty days earlier, still depends on the state of the moon in the Holy Land, as the different time-zones we observe for convenience throughout the world would have Easter Sundays taking place a day this way and a day that way in different places otherwise. The Western Churches calculate Easter to fall on the first Sunday of the first full moon after the 21st of March, although what is known as the vernal equinox can occur on March 20th. Fixing the date is complicated enough already without allowing for every possible variation.
While Western Christians use the Gregorian calendar, the one used for both religious and secular dating in most parts of the world, most of the Orthodox churches use the older Julian calendar. This leads to a different Easter date, so if you take your holidays in Greece you might find flowers on the street on May day for instance, not to celebrate a feast of Mary or international worker’s day, but the resurrection of Jesus. Complicated? No doubt, but in practice people take it as it comes. In this day and age it is great to find something which is not dictated by commercial interests.
Working out the dates for Ash Wednesday and Easter is nearly as much penance in itself as anything else we might decide to do for Lent. The words: ‘Operation Transformation’ are now the title to a television programme but they are close enough to what Lent calls for. The big difference is that Lent goes a step further than getting the body into shape, important and all as that can be. Spring-cleaning of the soul is a phrase I have used in the past and it links in nicely with the Eastern Catholic notion of ‘Clean Monday,’ the cleaning of the spiritual house.
For almost forty years now the Trócaire box has been an integral part of Lent in Ireland, a notion that ties giving to giving-up. I am aware of how much people in this as well as other parts of the world have given for Haiti since the earthquake there, but I know that if anything this will lead to an even bigger Trócaire Lenten collection. While Haiti deserves all that has been contributed and more, people are aware that ongoing projects to better people’s lives in other parts of the world are important too. Just as people dug deep in the aftermath of the tsunami five years ago, and still forked out for Trócaire during Lent, I am confident they will do the same this year.
Easter is a moveable feast because it is connected to the timing of Jewish Passover. That was the feast Jesus was celebrating on the night Christians call the ‘Last Supper’ because it occurred on the night before he was crucified. That was the night that the Jewish pass-over of the Red Sea from slavery in Egypt is celebrated. The date was and is connected to the time of the full moon because of the moon’s effect on tides. The seemingly miraculous parting of the water which allowed the Israelites to escape was probably the effect of the spring tide when low water is at its lowest and high-tide at its highest, as anyone who ever lived near the sea will be aware.
Our Easter date, and therefore Ash Wednesday about forty days earlier, still depends on the state of the moon in the Holy Land, as the different time-zones we observe for convenience throughout the world would have Easter Sundays taking place a day this way and a day that way in different places otherwise. The Western Churches calculate Easter to fall on the first Sunday of the first full moon after the 21st of March, although what is known as the vernal equinox can occur on March 20th. Fixing the date is complicated enough already without allowing for every possible variation.
While Western Christians use the Gregorian calendar, the one used for both religious and secular dating in most parts of the world, most of the Orthodox churches use the older Julian calendar. This leads to a different Easter date, so if you take your holidays in Greece you might find flowers on the street on May day for instance, not to celebrate a feast of Mary or international worker’s day, but the resurrection of Jesus. Complicated? No doubt, but in practice people take it as it comes. In this day and age it is great to find something which is not dictated by commercial interests.
Working out the dates for Ash Wednesday and Easter is nearly as much penance in itself as anything else we might decide to do for Lent. The words: ‘Operation Transformation’ are now the title to a television programme but they are close enough to what Lent calls for. The big difference is that Lent goes a step further than getting the body into shape, important and all as that can be. Spring-cleaning of the soul is a phrase I have used in the past and it links in nicely with the Eastern Catholic notion of ‘Clean Monday,’ the cleaning of the spiritual house.
For almost forty years now the Trócaire box has been an integral part of Lent in Ireland, a notion that ties giving to giving-up. I am aware of how much people in this as well as other parts of the world have given for Haiti since the earthquake there, but I know that if anything this will lead to an even bigger Trócaire Lenten collection. While Haiti deserves all that has been contributed and more, people are aware that ongoing projects to better people’s lives in other parts of the world are important too. Just as people dug deep in the aftermath of the tsunami five years ago, and still forked out for Trócaire during Lent, I am confident they will do the same this year.
Week ending 9th February 2010
“Come back, Tommy. Nearly all is forgiven” or “All is nearly forgiven” was my first reaction to Tommy Tiernan’s interview with Gay Byrne on RTE’s “The Meaning Of Life” spot on a recent Sunday night. Not for Tommy the fashionable and sometimes facile agnosticism of those who do not think very seriously about these issues, or for whom an admission of religious feelings might be a bad career move. God is definitely on his agenda, a God who has to be able to take a joke, but who accepts him as he is. I thought his proposed comment to God on reaching the pearly gates: “What next?” asked with a big smile, was priceless.
My “nearly forgiven” refers to his seeming need to insult as many vulnerable sections of society as he can, the handicapped, travellers, Holocaust victims, accident victims. It is one thing to shine the light of humour on political correctness, another to mock people who already feel discriminated against. Cheap laughs at the expense of the vulnerable have nothing to do with real wit or humour. Attempts to explain or justify such excuses for a laugh ring hollow. The ‘no limit’ approach to what’s good for a laugh can be just too close to too many (gassed or otherwise) bones.
As outlined in this column in the past I had my own issues with Tommy Tiernan’s reference to priests as sh**e on a Late Late Show a number of years ago. My anger was more directed at Pat Kenny and authorities in the station who never to my knowledge distanced themselves from that comment, despite it being roundly condemned by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. It reminded me of sports people willingly accepting a yellow card so long as they managed to put the boot into the opposition.
I got over that insult by not paying my television licence for a considerable period of time, and quoting the comment and Mr Kenny’s reaction to it in my next novel “Díbirt Dé” (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2008.) An English version of that book “Godfool” is due for publication later this year and it repeats those comments. I always think that the best test of any joker is to see can they themselves take a joke. As it happens clergy have had to take far worse and more deserved comments since then, because of the Ryan and Murphy reports which make any perceived insults from the past fade into insignificance..
Ireland has had a strong comic tradition through Oscar Wilde, Myles na gCopaleen, Brendan Behan, and many others long before our present dominance, almost, of the stand-up comic scene or the success of Father Ted or Kilinaskully. Even many of the better-known English comics have Irish roots. Humour is one of the best medicines of life. Most people can take the crude and cracks about politics and religion in their stride even if they mock their political party or their faith. Cheap shots and insults, laughs at the expense of the vulnerable or those discriminated against say more about the so-called jokers than those they purport to laugh at.
My “nearly forgiven” refers to his seeming need to insult as many vulnerable sections of society as he can, the handicapped, travellers, Holocaust victims, accident victims. It is one thing to shine the light of humour on political correctness, another to mock people who already feel discriminated against. Cheap laughs at the expense of the vulnerable have nothing to do with real wit or humour. Attempts to explain or justify such excuses for a laugh ring hollow. The ‘no limit’ approach to what’s good for a laugh can be just too close to too many (gassed or otherwise) bones.
As outlined in this column in the past I had my own issues with Tommy Tiernan’s reference to priests as sh**e on a Late Late Show a number of years ago. My anger was more directed at Pat Kenny and authorities in the station who never to my knowledge distanced themselves from that comment, despite it being roundly condemned by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. It reminded me of sports people willingly accepting a yellow card so long as they managed to put the boot into the opposition.
I got over that insult by not paying my television licence for a considerable period of time, and quoting the comment and Mr Kenny’s reaction to it in my next novel “Díbirt Dé” (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2008.) An English version of that book “Godfool” is due for publication later this year and it repeats those comments. I always think that the best test of any joker is to see can they themselves take a joke. As it happens clergy have had to take far worse and more deserved comments since then, because of the Ryan and Murphy reports which make any perceived insults from the past fade into insignificance..
Ireland has had a strong comic tradition through Oscar Wilde, Myles na gCopaleen, Brendan Behan, and many others long before our present dominance, almost, of the stand-up comic scene or the success of Father Ted or Kilinaskully. Even many of the better-known English comics have Irish roots. Humour is one of the best medicines of life. Most people can take the crude and cracks about politics and religion in their stride even if they mock their political party or their faith. Cheap shots and insults, laughs at the expense of the vulnerable or those discriminated against say more about the so-called jokers than those they purport to laugh at.
Week ending 2nd February 2010
A couple of blasts from the past came at me out of the blue recently, like old friends turning up unexpectedly. I refer to books I had written quite some time ago, which I presumed had disappeared from everyone’s radar. I had nearly forgotten the stories themselves until reminded by readers who rang me up in the last couple of weeks for different reasons.
The first was a woman in the Sligo area who was asked to read an Irish language novel for a diploma she was doing under the auspices of the National University of Ireland, Galway. The only such book she could find in her local bookshops happened to be my novel “Saoire” (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1997) She seemed surprised to find that the Irish was simple and easy to read and that the story was not bad either. She told me that she read it from start to finish in one evening.
There were a number of questions she needed to ask as part of her study, and this is where I began to feel a little embarrassed as she knew far more about the story than I did. On reflection this was not too surprising as the book was published thirteen years ago, and most of it had been written two years earlier. It is a book set in Crete, based on observations made on my first overseas holiday. It was good to hear someone say so long after its publication that it managed to capture the atmosphere of that Mediterranean island.
The second call was about a more recent novel, “Sobalsaol” (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2005) This was from a Dublin radio station which has a one hour Irish language slot on a Friday evening. They were reporting from a book club, the members of which were reading this book during the month of January and were looking for the author’s thoughts on the matter. I remembered this story a little better than the other as it was more recent, but I had to bail out of the interview half way through as the doorbell rang and I had to deal with something more important.
Sobalsaol basically means Soap life, and it was inspired by a time I spent writing scripts for the TG4 drama, Ros na Rún about ten years ago. While I enjoyed the social aspect of the writing, meeting and discussing matters with other writers, etc., I thought it a very difficult life for someone whose only livelihood it was. The pressure of deadlines, of a person only being as good as your last script, of being basically at the mercy of editors and producers I found very difficult. It was very professional and was cruel in the sense that people could be hired or fired without any comeback.
Another element to it was the danger of a writer/director/producer being so caught up in the drama that it could become more important than real life. I tried to include as many of those themes in the novel as I could, while keeping it a work of fiction and trying to poke some fun at the intensity of soap life. I think writers are better off to have a job which keeps them grounded. Those who are too successful at the start often write fulltime and lose focus on the realities of daily living.
I hear many complaints from people who claim the can not find Irish language books in local bookshops. I do not know whether it is the shop-owners or the distributors who are to blame for this. The best way to get around it is to e-mail or ring the publishers and they will supply the book you want, usually by return post. Cló Iar-Chonnachta have a large range not just of their own books, but many others by Clócomhar, and Sáirséal agus Dill. E-mail – cic@iol.ie. Phone no: 091-593307
The first was a woman in the Sligo area who was asked to read an Irish language novel for a diploma she was doing under the auspices of the National University of Ireland, Galway. The only such book she could find in her local bookshops happened to be my novel “Saoire” (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 1997) She seemed surprised to find that the Irish was simple and easy to read and that the story was not bad either. She told me that she read it from start to finish in one evening.
There were a number of questions she needed to ask as part of her study, and this is where I began to feel a little embarrassed as she knew far more about the story than I did. On reflection this was not too surprising as the book was published thirteen years ago, and most of it had been written two years earlier. It is a book set in Crete, based on observations made on my first overseas holiday. It was good to hear someone say so long after its publication that it managed to capture the atmosphere of that Mediterranean island.
The second call was about a more recent novel, “Sobalsaol” (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2005) This was from a Dublin radio station which has a one hour Irish language slot on a Friday evening. They were reporting from a book club, the members of which were reading this book during the month of January and were looking for the author’s thoughts on the matter. I remembered this story a little better than the other as it was more recent, but I had to bail out of the interview half way through as the doorbell rang and I had to deal with something more important.
Sobalsaol basically means Soap life, and it was inspired by a time I spent writing scripts for the TG4 drama, Ros na Rún about ten years ago. While I enjoyed the social aspect of the writing, meeting and discussing matters with other writers, etc., I thought it a very difficult life for someone whose only livelihood it was. The pressure of deadlines, of a person only being as good as your last script, of being basically at the mercy of editors and producers I found very difficult. It was very professional and was cruel in the sense that people could be hired or fired without any comeback.
Another element to it was the danger of a writer/director/producer being so caught up in the drama that it could become more important than real life. I tried to include as many of those themes in the novel as I could, while keeping it a work of fiction and trying to poke some fun at the intensity of soap life. I think writers are better off to have a job which keeps them grounded. Those who are too successful at the start often write fulltime and lose focus on the realities of daily living.
I hear many complaints from people who claim the can not find Irish language books in local bookshops. I do not know whether it is the shop-owners or the distributors who are to blame for this. The best way to get around it is to e-mail or ring the publishers and they will supply the book you want, usually by return post. Cló Iar-Chonnachta have a large range not just of their own books, but many others by Clócomhar, and Sáirséal agus Dill. E-mail – cic@iol.ie. Phone no: 091-593307
