Here we go again.

Just thought I'd carry on some more.
You may not have had too much regard for John Paul 11. That's ok.
I thought I'd add that video just to get in touch with some of the elements he brought into all our lives. Yes , yours and mine. We can't escape the giant figure of the last century. He certainly was a giant. The strange thing is that he was such an ordinary man. He loved the ordinary things. I suspect that he never really believed the extraordinary things that happened to him.
I spent some time in St Florians Church in Krakow where he was first sent as a young priest. It was being renovated and under scaffolding but you could still get in. I stood at the altar in the crypt of the Cathedral too, at which he said his first Mass. He stood there alone with a server, on that day. His beloved dad had died at home alone while he was working at the quarry, his brother had died from an infection he picked up working at the hospital, his mother and his little sister died when he was a child. He knew loss and death. To his dying day he was sorry that he was not at home when either of his parents died.
This soccer playing actor and poet went into the archbishops house to study in secret for the priesthood. He had to hide from the Nazi's. He never went to the seminary and was ordained in secret. I expect he thought he would serve out his life in quiet parish work but that was not to be.
We often say " it was not to be".
Think about that. What will be will be. There was an song about that years ago too. Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see. Que sera sera.
Who would belive the handsome actorwith the sonorous voice,worker in the stone quarry would change the world! He did too, have no doubt. He brought Communism down. If you don't believe that go and read a reputable biography. He corresponded with Gorbachev 'till the end. He was a man for all seasons.
Its ok if you don't quite get turned on by a dead Pope, or even a live one.
Just think of a life. That's also why I put the video up. We come and then we go. Perhaps we do a little good while we are here. That's the key. Make the place, AND yourself a little better for being here a while.

Gay Byrne, of Irish Radio and T.V. fame, lost all his investments becuse his "friend", who was also his accountant, squandered his clients' money on his mistress. The man took his own life when could no longer conceal his wrongdoing.Gay was in despair. He sat in Donnybrook Church trying to work out how he could go forward. What would he do? His life's savings were gone.
He says that a very strong realisation came to him sitting there,that he must go on.
It was very simple, he says in his autobiography. He realised that this life is it. It is not a rehersal. This is the big performance here and now and we are on stage. Make the best of it. So he sorted out his head and continued on to RTE to present the Late Late Show.
I like to think along these lines.-- The past is history and its gone.-- The future has not yet come.-- This is our here and now. Our moment.
Make the best of it.


Teilhard de Chardin used the beautiful concept of "the scarament of the present moment". This is given as a gift to us. Sometimes, indeed often, it does not seem to be giftlike. Hoever it is ours. Work through it.
What is it saying? Put it in context of the big picture. Remember, its not a rehersal. --This is showtime. ... take it easy, Ger

To Be With
When I was very young there was a famous singer in the American charts called Jim Reeves. One of his songs was “Welcome to my World”. That world of his was not such a good place. Yep, it was the usual, girl gone, future wrecked, dreams dashed, plans shattered,and love lost. Uplifting isn’t it ?
Leave me alone please. I am alright in my own world, thanks very much.
But in counselling that’s what we do. We walk into each others worlds. Sometimes its a sore experience. We get in there and “be” with the person. At least we try. Or at least we should make the effort to try. If we don’t do that how can we counsel?
We Irish often punctuate our conversation with the encouraging expression “I know” peppered through our verbal exchanges. But do we?
Do we know the world of a woman betrayed and going through a separation? Do we know the world of a man faced with redundancy and no prospect of employment in the autumn of his life? Do we know the world of the abuse victim who has had the horror bottled up for thirty years? Do we know the anguish of the Catholic priest who loves both his girlfriend and his ministry? Do we know , ... really?
Let’s bring it closer to home. Do we really know ourselves? Ok, more precisely, do you know you?? Are you sure?? Ok, let’s see, how come you are hurt when someone says something quite bluntly to you, especially when it contains a large grain of truth. But she shouldn’t have said it, at least not that way!
Is that a window into your personal unknown? Are you afraid of a dark place, a closed door or the Eifel Tower? Why?
Your world is a mystery not only to me, but to you too.
I suppose a good healthy sexual relationship is partly an exploration of another’s world. Its physical, spiritual and emotional. Its many other things besides, for example, its healing and expressive. The list goes on. If it is not, then it lacks a quality of” humanness” and moves into another order of being. Into the exploitative. It is, to borrow Mother Teresa’s phrase, something beautiful for God, for Me and for You. It is to be able to say “I love you”, to be “I love you”, to understand “I love You”, to become “I love You” .
To love is to be. Those who have not are in another place, not in my world. Deus caritas est.
And I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Only to be with You. ...U2

More Thoughts
Last time I wrote about what I still call “wandering”. I still love to wander. Especially when I am abroad with friends or family. I will aimlessly “wander ” around a new place, city or whatever, just to see it and soak up the atmosphere. Walking around Agadir in Moroco, being shouted at by the traders was an experience.
I have a beard. The custom in that country is that a man may have a moustache or a shaped beard, not a full one. So, once I wandered outside the tourist area I was smiled at, shouted, at called at ( so was my travelling companion, also a Bearded One). I would call back. There would be an exchange, a laugh and I would move on.
On one occasion a mother and her young son, about four years old walked past me. She turned and came back, called out to the boy to look. I smiled and gave them a few coins. The boy kept staring. He was transfixed. It was, for him, the nearest thing to a child seeing Santa Claus for the first time! Ali Baba. Ali Baba!!! Regard Maman, Ali Baba. There was I, unknown to myself creating consternation among the Moslem Faithful as a perambulating” Ali Baba”. ... We never know , do we?
So later,I had to ask a friendly native. Seems the full beard is the mark of Ali Baba. “Oh”, said I,” and the forty thieves. That’s not fair, I said I am not a thief, I am a teacher”! ( despite current media opinion, not the same thing!)
“Oh! No, Monsieur, Ali Baba et les 40 femmes”. This accompanied by a raising of the fore arm in a phallic manner. “Oh!, oui monsieur, c’est vrais, Ali Baba avec des femmes. Mmmmmmmm”!!! Said with more than a touch of salacious envy. I don’t know what he thought I was doing in the back streets of Agadir, but I don’t think it was simply “wandering”.
Ok, so that’s that. But let me share something else with you now. Ironically, I was doing something else. I found the Catholic Church in Agadir. Very discreet, very simple and very quiet. It was wonderful. I stayed there alone for more than an hour. Surrounded by the minarets of the many mosques, invaded by the call to prayer of the Moslem Faithful I took some time out from taking time out.
How can I convey the specialness of that time? Sometimes we can get a handle on special moments, often with great clarity. I think perhaps it is because we contrast one thing against another. The opposition sets the difference in clear view. We can see things as they really are, no longer in a glass, darkly. So peace against turmoil, silence against the noise of these days. Love against its absence, (not hatred, that’s too pure, like raw poteen, and for consideration another day) .
In that little Church, in a Moslem land, there was a sense of peace and of prayer. There were prayer books and hymnals around on seats and shelves. Leaflets and notes and the parish newsletter. This was no museum . There were plenty of plants too and a lovely little courtyard at the back of which was the very modest priests’ residence. All quite small and neat and clean.
In this foreign friendly land I found my space. I was at home with the things I know, in that special way which is beyond words. Just like in Granada at the tomb of St. John of God, the Sacre Coeur, the other, little Church in Paris whose name I forget, and in so many other places. In these places we create a special moment. We make a thin place between this world and the next and we allow its peace to envelop us. We can be alone, alone or alone in a congregation. We can be alone with the Other. We can set up a contrast, come to know ourselves and the Other. We can enter into the Sacrament of the Present Moment.
Take a look at www.sacredspace.ie.
Buoichas go deo le Dia.

So we go on...Just Some thoughts
I was thinking about what I would share with you this week. I came to this. Where are you Now?
Crazy question you might ask. But, just stop and think.
There was a time, long ago when I was a very impecunious student (no money),whose friends were more or less in the same state. What we were rich in was time and speculation. It was the time of Jea-Paul Sarte, Kafka and Camus. We were too late for the sixties but we were still somewhere in the overhang.
Many night s were spent walking around Rathmines in Dublin, just chatting. Luckily none of my companions were drinkers as such, even if we had the money. Our tipple was a cup of coffee , accompanied by a slice of homemade apple tart in the Alcé Cafe, Rathmines. I wrote a poem about it in 1971. Maybe it will be discovered when I am long gone and then I will be recognised!!
Really, though, they were great times. We had the most serious of debates, up through Rathgar and over to Harold’s Cross. We would take a look at the new models in Murphy and Gunn’s Garage, speculating on which one we would buy eventually. Innocent dreams of a bygone time. On we would go, as my friends would drop off one by one and I would end up at home in Templeogue. Foreign territory if you are from the North Side but you get the drift. Think Fairview, Marino and on to Collins Avenue and you get the sense. A lot of walking, and a lot of talking.
Who does that now? Very few I think. Why? Well think Bebo, Myspace, Blogs etc.
The dynamic has changed. We now walk in a cyber world. Not the same as turning up your collar in a chill Autumn wind or kicking through the leaves in Bushy Park. Can’t come near an awful game of tennis on the public courts there and a bet lost that couldn’t really be afforded, because that little prat from UCD really was as good as he said at tennis. I think they were good times. The friends made in the Gaeltacht, the late nights and early mornings. It just felt good. Because it was.
We did not do drugs. We did not break windows. Most of us went to Mass. One of us smoked, he was always adventurous. He is quite successful in London. Here am I sharing my ramblings with you. The other chap has five children, all grown up. He still speculates and ruminates. Just did a course in psychology in TCD. We wer e just ordinary guys, taking it easy.
By the way, the little prat from UCD made millions in America. He always was a winner.
As a person once said in a different context, “what was it like for you”?