Seeing visions, dreaming dreams.

Do you have vision?

‘I got vision; the rest of the world wears bifocals ‘ (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). Donal Trump must feel like that. He wanted that wall. He was right. If that wall had been built; it would have kept out the foreign invasion. (Coronavirus). That man should be admired rather than laughed at. He has done the right thing now – to stop all flights into the US. He could have included the UK. And the Irish -It would save the shamrock. What a genius!!

A faraway country:

 I had to leave Ireland. The locals wanted me deported. They said it was a test case for the future. How would I cope removed from my ‘home’ in Finglas. I moved out. This new world out here is healing for the soul: The sun. The waves. The flamingoes. The empty beach in the morning. The silence. It does help.

Fauna and flora:

On the early morning walks; I met my Dutch friend. He was ‘sad.’ Liverpool had lost. I met my Scot John. We bantered. I met my Mayo man, Bill, who wanders everywhere seeing the birds; the wild life; the beauty in the fauna and flora. He recalls our educational history and wonders how did we learn so little. He would be close to Ivan Illich. (Deschooling Society).

Old codgers:

Daily back at base. (In Finglas) I meet Russians, Lithuanians, Croatians, Italians, Slovakians, Romanians, Poles, Brazilians,Venezuelans. Each day they surprise me. They enrich me. They stir something of the breadth of life and experience. My Scottish friend John, was chatting yesterday morning. He stopped and asked what were we talking about. I couldn’t immediately recall the thread of our conversation either. He then said – ‘Just think of it. Those old fellows, Trump and Biden are our age and they want to run the US. That is like the two of us arrogantly proposing ourselves as fit for the role. Two old codgers. Them and us. And then our conversation went on.

The artist:

A friend has died. (Gypsy). An artist. A gracious lady. Her warmth lit up every company. The poetry of her soul, stirred the embers of humanity whomsoever she met. A follow citizen (US) Mary Oliver, muses over the artistic spirit. The wildness of the spirit. The creative juices come when they feel like it. They erupt. They demand attention. True living is being alert, respectful, to that wake up call. What did we ever learn through our long years of Education? Did we meet the world of God in beauty and in wonder? Did we learn to look around? Did we learn anything in theology which woke up our juices? Or was most of it, mechanical nonsense? False certainty encased in Ritualism. Perhaps, as we age, we learn to know how little we know and then we begin to grasp the enormity of life, around us and God. Mary Oliver, says that the artistic drive is a hunger for eternity. My artist friend too always touched us with grace.

The Samaritan woman and ourselves:

The Samaritan woman. Is a powerful story. It is a Drama that cries halt. We are called to think. The dramatist wants us to enter into the story. It is a participatory play. We are actors on stage. We become that woman. We are sometimes that person Jesus. We are the outsiders who come along afterwards. The Samaritan scene is a setting where the excluded, ignored, judged, dismissed, are observed. We recall when we ever felt just like that. It screams at the narrow minded; the closed shop mentality. The thirst is common to all. She wants water. He wants water. She is hungry. He is hungry. The returning disciples have been to the chipper. They return to see Jesus talking with a woman; with a Samaritan woman at that. They surely felt that he couldn’t be left alone for anytime; he always gets into trouble. He was training them to have big minds and hearts. He wasn’t getting too far.  We/they too often prefer the  narrows.

Wake up call:

What now? Before we leave the stage? What has happened? Do we let the sea, the waves, the birds, the people we meet (from any and every country) speak to us? What stretches our minds and hearts and imaginations to touch the sacred? It is too true – our education has been tidy and neat and organized and simplified. The stretching of the sinews of our minds is for the theological artist, pushing out the boundaries of life. Relationships. Friendships. Neighbours. Community. Marriage. Church life. Has to be expansive and surprising. If the expansiveness of faith is ever restricted; God has been imprisoned.

Hunger and Thirst:

The Samaritan woman was involved in a real conversation. A change occurred. It isn’t about how many men she had, or how many husbands. She was the model of loving. If you fail; try again. It isn’t about the clairvoyant Jesus. She was already following her thirsts and hungers. We are always thirsty. We are always hungry. That is the infinite in us. No one can be excluded. We can learn from anyone and everyone. Shut minds and hearts are indeed unGodly. Mary McAleese may be shattered at anything and everything emerging from official Church. However. Go if she wants. That is up to her. But all of us should stop finger-pointing and blaming and freshen up this Church where somehow God still speaks despite the mess we are often in. Our vocation is to reach out and touch the heavens and then to be a poet of faith.  Who now is the insider or the outsider?

Seamus Ahearne OSA