Merry Christmas from the Isle of St. Patrick

I have to admit that I wasn't familiar with this particular song prior to moving here.  However, I've heard it more than a few times this Christmas season and find it beautifully haunting...  

... "Walking in the Air" from the 1982 Oscar nominated short "The Snowman"...

Enjoy! 

Thomas Merton

Known for his mystical theology, Thomas Merton wrote many books on the topic of contemplation, meditation, and prayer.  One of the foremost Catholic writers in the last half of the 20th Century, I urge anyone interested in the inner life to read any or all of the following books by Merton:

• "New Seeds of Contemplation"
• "Contemplative Prayer"
  
• "Thoughts in Solitude"
• "No Man is an Island"

More about Thomas Merton here.

The Seven Storey Mountain

I bought this book while living in Northern California many, many years ago and never got around to reading it.  It was one of the few books that I brought with me here to Ireland...

... and I finally got around to reading it.

Thomas Merton was a special and unique Trappist monk.  He possessed a combination of keen intellect with an impressive yearning to know God.  He was also a tireless writer full of curiosity, kindness, poetry, and spirituality.

His modern journey was one not too different from that of St. Augustine.  This book will touch the contemporary reader as much or more so today as when it was first published in 1948.

A bit of a vagabond growing up (having lived in France, England, and America by the time he was a teen), he did not officially turn to Catholicism until his early 20's.  And once he did he explored his religion in great depth and shared his experience in this wonderful autobiography written in his early 30's.

My favorite sport...

... is college football.

And this is the home stadium of "my" team.

There's something magical and very special that happens when we score our first points in a game.  Thousands of balloons are released by the fans, one by one, that float gently up into the sky, carried away in the prevailing breeze to the four corners.  

It's truly a sight to behold.  I don't know of another tradition quite like it in all of college sport. 

Gratitude.  Praise.  Celebration.

Newgrange

At 5,500 years of age Newgrange is 500 years older than the Great Pyramids of Egypt and even predates Stonehenge. One of the most famous prehistoric sites in all the world and it's only a little over an hour away from us.

Full of megalithic art, this structure was created long ago to pay respect to the rising sun on one very specific day of the year -- which also happens to be the shortest day of the year -- the winter Solstice in late December. For approximately seventeen minutes on this one day the sun shines through a carefully constructed passageway to illuminate the floor deep inside the chamber.

5,500 years! Can you imagine?

The sun's relationship with the earth hasn't really changed that much in all this time.

Has man really?

August: Osage County

What a treat this was!

Probably the best modern play I've seen in... well, I don't know how long... maybe ever...

Winner of last year's Pulitzer and Tony awards and both were well deserved. Even at 3 hours and 20 minutes (with 2 intermissions) -- time flies.

One of the best characters I've ever seen on stage as written for that of this family matriarch -- Violet Weston. Estelle Parsons was absolutely fantastic in this role. A brilliant and energetic performance.

This play opened a year ago on Broadway and has been sold out ever since... and for good reason. With thirteen characters on stage, there's not a person in the audience that can't relate to at least one person in this particular dysfunctional family.

As my wife is fond of saying... "the opposite of dysfunction is dysfunction." And this family is functional dysfunction personified.

If you can't make it to the Big Apple anytime soon, then check it out as it will soon go on tour at a theater near you.

This is true art... go see it.

New York

That other Steve McQueen

Hard to believe that there are two Steve McQueen's in the film industry. But it got me thinking about this one...

A few years ago I viewed the original version of “The Thomas Crown Affair” with Steve McQueen. I immediately followed this with Pierce Brosnan’s remake of the same film. This was a great exercise for me because what became clear to me was that Steve McQueen had that thing referred to in Hollywood as “it.” He had the “it factor.” I hadn’t really thought about it before (or since) but it was very apparent to me at the time and made me think about some of the other McQueen films that I’d seen and enjoyed over the years (The Great Escape, Papillon, Bullitt, The Cincinnati Kid…) and I realized how much I’d underestimated him as an actor with true screen presence.

Steve McQueen was cool. Plain and simple. He was just being himself onscreen. You can’t teach that to young actors if they don’t have it already. Even though he trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actor’s Studio in the 1950’s, he was very aware of his own limitations as an actor, and admitted that he only took on roles where he could basically play a variation of himself.

One Island. Not one Ireland.

I ask again... why, in this 21st century, is this island not a united country?

Bobby Sands

Bobby Sands kept a secret diary during the first 17 days of his hunger strike.  I've provided some excerpts here:

Day 1

“I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world. May God have mercy on my soul. My heart is very sore because I know that I have broken my poor mother’s heart… I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien oppressive unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land… I believe and stand by the God given right of the Irish nation to sovereign independence and the right of any Irish man or woman to assert this right in armed revolution. That is why I am incarcerated, naked and tortured."

"Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that there can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally, and economically. I believe I am but another of those wretched Irishmen born of a risen generation with a deeply rooted and unquenchable desire for freedom. I am dying not just to attempt the barbarity of H-block or to gain the rightful recognition of a political prisoner but primarily because what is lost in here is lost for the Republic and those wretched oppressed who I deeply proud to know as the risen people.”

Day 10

"I may be a sinner but I stand and if it so be will die happy knowing that I do not have to answer for what these people have done to our ancient nation."  

"We wish to be treated not as ordinary prisoners for we are not criminals. We admit no crime unless that is the love of one’s people and country is a crime."

"Would Englishmen allow Germans to occupy their nation or Frenchmen to allow Dutchmen to do likewise?"

Day 17 

(St. Patrick’s Day) 

in Gaelic (last entry)

"If they aren’t able to destroy the desire for freedom they won’t break you. They won’t break me because the desire for freedom and the freedom of the Irish people is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then we will see the rising of the moon."

Hunger

Hunger is in general release here and we were finally able to see it this weekend.

Let me first say this is not a film for the weak or the timid. A brutally honest depiction of life inside of Long Kesh prison reflects with horror the violence ravished on the IRA prisoners by the British loyalist prison staff. I noticed that more than just a few members of the audience had to leave this particular screening. I’m not sure if it was because of the violence or because of the emotional memories raised by the film.

Directed by Steve McQueen (not that Steve McQueen but the British artist Steve McQueen) in his feature film directorial debut, it focuses on the 1981 IRA prisoner hunger strike, specifically highlighting the plight of Bobby Sands, who was the first of the ten to die.

I’m thankful that we were able to spend the time in Derry a few weeks ago and to have gained a much better understanding of the events that occurred which led up to the horrific experiences that take place in the film. I mention this because the film’s story construction, though powerful, is not a comprehensive retelling of the IRA hunger strike saga but a selective entry into these specific moments.

The emotional core of this film takes place in a scene between Bobby Sands and his visiting Catholic priest. Lasting fifteen minutes, shot in one take, it begins with rapid-fire Irish banter full of wit and false bravado then climbs the emotional mountain of the ethics of suicide and finishes powerfully with the beautiful story from Bobby’s childhood which forms his ultimate decision and comforts him long into his final moments. The tough exterior of the Irish priest cracks slightly as he realizes the true strength and deep desire of Bobby’s will. It’s a nice scene that might have been even more emotional had the director chosen to film this in traditional over the shoulder form.

There’s more than enough that is non-traditional in this story that makes it refreshing. In other words, it’s not a typical Hollywood retelling of the Bobby Sands story.

I urge you to experience this film. You won’t be disappointed. It’s brutal to watch at times and painful but it’s also very human. It begs an answer to a question that simply will not go away:

Why, in this 21st century, is this island not a united country?

The Road Less Traveled

My wife Karen took these on our drive back to Dublin.  

We get a kick out of the road signs here, especially when the road is "slippy."

The Troubles

The Hunger Strike memorial honoring the ten IRA members who died during the 1981 hunger strike in the HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland, just outside Belfast. Bobby Sands was the first to die (after 66 days). His funeral was attended by more than 100,000 people. The film "Hunger" has just been released which focuses on these significant events.

I often ask locals the question of why this island is not a united island today. I never seem to get a straight answer. Nobody wants to talk about it. I'm told that it's too hurtful, the scars are too deep as a legacy from "the troubles."

My wife and I recently took a trip up to Northern Ireland, to Derry, the city where the riots first broke out after the RUC (N. Irish police) attacked a peaceful civil rights march in 1968. This event was seen as a trigger for the decades of violence that followed. The Bogside area of the city was also the spot where Bloody Sunday occurred in 1972 where British paramilitary troops murdered 14 civilians (including seven teenagers) and shot and wounded another 14.

We had a private tour conducted by an IRA member and former prisoner who witnessed the events of Bloody Sunday. His perspective is that the British controlled the media, spinning it as a Catholic vs. Protestant issue, when this was clearly not the case. It was, and remains, an issue of colonization. All I can say is that he spoke his truth. And it was powerful.

If you're interested in any of this history, I highly recommend the following films:

• "Michael Collins" (1996)
• "Bloody Sunday" (2002)
• "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" (2006)
• "Hunger" (2008)

The murals below were painted by a trio of artists to signify the events of Bloody Sunday and the sectarian violence in the Bogside area of Derry during "the troubles." It's known as the People's Gallery.

Dublin

at night...

Henrik Ibsen

Norwegian playwright (1828-1906)

"The title of the play is Hedda Gabler.  My intention in giving it this name was to indicate that Hedda as a personality is to be regarded rather as her father's daughter than as her husband's wife.  It was not really my intention to deal in this play with so-called problems.  What I principally wanted to do was to depict human beings, human emotions, and human destinies, upon a groundwork of certain social conditions and principles of the present day.  When you have read the whole, my fundamental idea will be clearer to you than I can make it by entering into further explanations." 

On writing...

• "Writing has... been to me like a bath from which I have risen feeling cleaner, healthier, and freer."
• "At the moment of conception one must be on fire, but at the time of writing, cold."
• "I can only speak freely through the mouths of characters in a play."
• "Before I write down one word, I have to have the character in mind through and through.  I must penetrate into the last wrinkle of his soul.  I always proceed from the individual; the stage setting, the dramatic ensemble, all of that comes naturally and does not cause me any worry, as soon as I am certain of the individual in every aspect of his humanity. But I have to have his exterior in mind also, down to the last button, how he stands and walks, how he conducts himself, what his voice sounds like.  Then I do not let him go until his fate is fulfilled."
• "To live is to war with trolls in heart and soul.  To write is to sit in judgement on oneself."
• "The essential thing is... to draw a clear distinction between what one has merely experienced and what one has spiritually lived through; for only the latter is proper material for creative writing."

Hedda Gabler

We recently saw this play at the Gate Theater in Dublin.

Described as "Brian Friel's Variations on a Play by Ibsen," this was the first time I'd seen "Hedda Gabler," though I first read the play maybe ten or fifteen years ago.

Written in 1890, this still remains one of the classic dramas based upon a modern female character of great strength and inner conflict. Hedda at her core is a woman that wishes she were a man.

There was not an empty seat in this medium-sized theater for this limited run. This suited me just fine as it added a particular energy to the experience of the play. This combined with the quick pacing of the updated 19th Century dialogue made for a formidable and enjoyable theater experience.

Still one of the best and most shocking endings of any play (though I think it plays out better in the reader's mind than what is experienced as a theater-goer).

T.S. Eliot

• "Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal."
• "The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality."
• "Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go."
• "The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the man which creates."
• "Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow."

Friedrich Nietzsche - The Beyond in Art

Even though his father and grandfather were Lutheran ministers, Nietzsche was scornful of religion.  He believed that Christianity's focus on the afterlife made people less capable in handling their existing lives.  

However, with that said, he was very appreciative of art and recognized that great art must have a metaphysical influence...  "If belief in such heavenly truth declines in general, then that species of art can never flourish again which -- like the Divine Comedy, the paintings of Raphael, the frescoes of Michelangelo, the Gothic cathedrals -- presupposes not only a cosmic but a metaphysical significance in the objects of art."

I couldn't agree more.

D.C.

Even Jefferson knew...

... that red wine has its health benefits.

Founding Founders

I was in Virginia recently for a wedding and had an opportunity to visit Monticello.

A visit to D.C. and other Founder-related sites should be mandatory for all American citizens at some stage in their life. I am in awe of these giant figures of great passion that did so much to have a positive impact on the world. This is what real change is. To risk body and soul to form a new country, a new political system based on an ideal, to do something that nobody in history had ever done before or since.

Some food for thought from Jefferson himself:

• Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
• Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself.
• Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous...
• Nothing in Europe can counterbalance the freedom, the simplicity, the friendship and the domestic felicity we enjoy in America.
• I hope and firmly believe that the whole world will, sooner or later, feel benefit from the issue of our assertion of the rights of man.
• I cannot live without books.
• [on France]... she is the wealthiest but worst governed country on earth.
• But why send an American youth to Europe for education?
• [on Great Britain]... of all nations on earth they require to be treated with the most hauteur. They require to be kicked into common good manners.
• There is a fullness of time when men should go, and not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance.
• There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him.
• The man who loves his country on its own account, and not merely for its trappings of interest or power, can never be divorced from it; can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off.
• The man who is dishonest as a statesman would be a dishonest man in any station.
• Responsibility weighs with its heaviest force on a single head.
• With the same honest views, the most honest men often form different conclusions.
• As the Creator has made no two faces alike, so no two minds, and probably no two creeds.
• Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her own.
• My idea is that we should be made one nation in every case concerning foreign affairs, and separate ones in whatever is merely domestic.
• [on the Presidency]... no man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it.
• A nation ceases to be republican only when the will of the majority ceases to be the law.
• A nation united can never be conquered.
• The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk. But direct your attention by the objects surrounding you. Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
• It is always better to have no ideas than false ones and to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
• Experience alone brings skill.
• You live in a country where talents, learning, and honesty are so much called for that every man who possesses these may be what he pleases.
• I am a real Christian; that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.
• The will of the people... is the only legitimate foundation of any government.
• Without virtue, happiness cannot be.
• The essence of virtue is in doing good to others.

Back to Ireland...

... where it's been raining you know what...

Milan

- The Last Supper

- Leonardo da Vinci

- Duomo di Milano

- Duomo di Milano

- Teatro alla Scala (La Scala Opera House)

- Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

- Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II