Outsiders and Insiders

Lord Waterford died last week. His estate was my playground as a youngster. I got nostalgic. My head was busy with memories. My mother worked there; my father worked there; my uncle worked there; I worked there. I lived there. The 2500+ acres was a beautiful backyard.
Our Irish literature is full of stories of the Big House; the fading relevance of the Gentry in our society; how they now live on the periphery – neither part of the society they live in or belonging to the English society where they came from historically. (William Trevor sums this up very well as do many others).
I am ambivalent. My father found work on Curraghmore Estate when he lost his job in the local Tannery. Our family found the Waterfords always very caring, warm and helpful. I recall when my sister (as a baby) needed a radium shot; it was Lady Waterford who took her to Temple Street. We always had timber for the fire and a big world to explore. However, it still nags at my innards that Lords and Ladies are such a strange anomaly in a Republic. It also strikes me as wrong that the gentry still have leasehold ownership of so much land and housing throughout the country; that they have fishing rights and shooting rights and hunting rights. After all these years as a Republic, we are left with such a residue of our colonial past. Our politicians surely must be asleep.
As the writers might put it – the gentry now belong no where. They are outsiders. Often times, their Big Houses don’t have the cosiness or comfort that the rest of the ordinary people have. There is something almost sad at how dreary some of these forlorn houses have become. The ‘doffing’ hats culture is gone. The ‘curtsying’ culture is gone. The gentry have become the ‘poor relations.’
It is a strange comparison but the Church at times seems somewhat similar. The Church (gentry) ruled the lives of all. The hats were doffed. The titles were used (many are still used…… Father; Your Lordship; Your excellency!!! ) The uniform was worn. ‘They’ held the key to the sacred. But somehow, so much of this is now outside mainstream Irish culture. The ‘church’ hardly matters. Church people have almost become figures of fun. A caricature has taken over. Sometimes the clergy have become irrelevant and are almost vestiges of a long lost past – best forgotten. Yes, we are less important which is just as well. We hardly matter. Life has moved on. It is such a pity that the trappings of the past might get in the way of the Christ of the Gospels. The challenge for all, is that the Gospel and Jesus Christ and therefore the ministers become immersed in the places, people, clay of the day (Sounds incarnational). So much needs to be discarded and many of us are too old to let go. Many of us aren’t creative enough to rethink the message.
I am amazed that I should be linking the gentry with the Church ministers in Ireland. This may be coming from a deranged mind. And now as I begin to recover; I have begun to read again and think a little. I glance at ‘Treasured and Transformed’ (Vision for the heart) Daniel O Leary. I like his musings. His understanding of the incarnation is similar to my own. I look again at Mary Oliver’s ‘I Happened to be standing.’I sauntered through Rachel Joyce’s ‘The Unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry.’ I found Paul Philibert ‘s Opening talk on a Synod (Limerick) too much for me but interesting. I couldn’t begin Jose Pagola (Fresh eyes). Padraig Daly’s new book – ‘God in winter’ is very real and it is winter in Church life.
I watched the interview with Enda Kenny which was poor. He was robotic and lifeless. Miriam (she annoys me most times anyway) also was crude in her demand for ‘yes or no ‘ answers to questions which cannot be summed up so succinctly. I saw Paul Murphy being sliced and diced by Ryan Turbridy and was rather impressed (and not by Paul!) We can be critical of our politicians or critical of our colonial past but we need to be more critical of our own presentation of Jesus Christ. Some of our leaders who play along with the media are not impressive either.
It is good to be sick for a while. Life has a different perspective. I’m hopeless at idleness. It is frightening to be helpless. It is humbling to be out of control and to lose independence. It is shocking not to be able to think or read or write or do anything. But the God of the ‘outsider’ has to speak to the heart of someone who is totally at home in the ‘church ‘ outside the Temple. I am used to being up to my oxters in the muck of everyday life. The detached outsider’s view is very foreign. Belonging no where and adrift, sounds like the life of the gentry – It is not where I want to be or where the Church we must create, can remain. But as (Gospel ministers) we are now very much outsiders; so we can be more aware of how so many felt ‘outsiders’ in the world of Church in our past. We now feel in present day Ireland (outsiders) as we made so many feel in the past (outsiders). The empathy of understanding can help us along.
Seamus Ahearne osa