lady in waiting

how ignorant and heartless my previous posts now appear, in the light of this week....its a horrible feeling knowing how wrong you were.....

no-one can think thoughts about death and the afterlife and sickness without needing god as much as you need air....least of all me.........its just so baffling....

it makes you want to not love so you don't feel the pain of knowing that people you do love will die 

it makes you not want to get old, realising the many and varied ways in which age can wreck you.

it makes you want to spare others who have chosen the folly of loving you, the horror of having to watch you go.

it makes you want to ask god about a million questions.

it also makes you realise once more that he's the only one who has a right to know the answers...

it is the most universal and yet the most personal thing. like god. 

so i'm going to ireland tomorrow as it seems my grandmother does not have long left til she will go on ahead, as they say...

my grandmother's name is eithne o'brien. she is 91. 

she gave birth to six children, saw five of them into adulthood. saw one of them go before her five years ago. 

she was married to george o'brien for oh i don't know! yonks! about 55 years i imagine...

she campaigned for the rights of local traveller people. she called them itinerants.

she campaigned for people to be able to own their council houses

she got a computer when she was about 75 and went to computer class

she wrote a poem about wheelie bins when the 'corporation' introduced them in Clonmel. it was published in the newspaper.

she researched both sides of her family tree, her mother's side now goes back to the year 637. she worked on this history for years and years. she used to take trips on to dublin on the train to go to the library...

she was quietly formidable, and quietly caring. 

had she been born in a different time she would have done a job like i'm doing now, i think. or maybe been the prime minister. 

and now she's waiting her turn. i hope to be there before she sets off. x

you'd better put the kettle on...

if you have the time, i've got the story to tell...
go and get your coffee...

ireland is almost invariably good to me, but the north.....i've only been here once before, but i'm fairly sure i could stay...i won't, (yet) but i could....here in the quiet of county tyrone, its kind of like yorkshire moors meets riverful tipperary, and it seems like it's glad i'm here.

we three (barlow, drage and na) arrived on a cold saturday morning, my prayers for sunshine still ringing round my ears...we were met by a giddy emma, who had that look about her of one who has spent a week or two at home: good food, comfy bed, many walks, some hard work pruning. the four of us tramped around belfast for a couple of hours in the tank (not literally a tank, clearly...that would be contraversial....), getting a right luxury tour of the old town. emma has clearly being doing her research lately, and looked surprisingly at home even in her four-by-four....for me, it was all new....the falls, the shankhill, the muralled gables and the painted kerbstones had been mainly myth and legend in my head. my one trip to the north in 1995 had involved a route that bypassed the city (it had however passed almost alongside the cowan family farm as it would happen), and the tyrone towns on that road had shown me the fierceness of flags...but the city itself is something rather diffferent. not myth, the signs of nations and banners and histories, the faces of victims and prisoners and martyrs painted on walls, the slogans and promises of small armies of boys and young men....these are real and rather rife in the cities suburbs. you feel like they're glaring at you saying - do you really expect i'll ever be pulled down? - you can't argue easily with a flag. by the end of our tour i felt like my lungs were being wringed out by some very strong hands. i hadn't cried but i had instead felt just that - like my insides were churning or being kneaded. i didn't want to leave though - it had a strange pull on me that i knew meant until i had got out of the tank and walked around i wouldn't feel everything that there is for me to feel for the place. the walk is for another time.

so we took coffee and raisin bread at common grounds, possibly the most delightful coffee house i have seen for a while - take note rikes, you should come check it out...

then we proceeded to the farm. i'm not sure i know how to describe how homely someone else's house is, but when shown to my room, i felt i could stay a week and not miss anything or want to be anywhere else. emma had left a careful selection of books on my bedside table, and the accuracy of her understanding of my literary requirements was uncanny. seamus heaney awaited me there - the death of a naturalist - which i haven't read since i was about seventeen. he will resurface later in my story. alongside it was silver linings, by martin fletcher, which any of you wishing to know more about this place and why it has been so contested over should probably froogle for. (isbn 0-349-11251-7)

we ate lunch and enjoyed jimmy and rosemary's observation of us, his historical insights and her loving the chat from around the table. we sat around that table for what felt like the whole afternoon, so when we four came to depart for the boat, i felt sure it was nearly evening. emma then told us she had sneakily prayed that the minutes we were all together here would feel like hours...and lo, it was only about half-three....

the drive west across almost as far as enniskillin was for me a bit of a musical journey, through towns and across rivers, whose lovers and legends i had only heard sung about. (mostly by my dad, who i quietly wished was there for that particular leg of the trip). i read with wonder the book of irish history emma had provided for just such a road, and finger-traced our progress across the width of ulster on its map, wondering if one half from the south and half from over the water could ever really know what it means to love this place.

our expectations of 'the barge' came crashing down when we discovered that the cowan family boat was in fact a 'luxury yacht' (so named by the girls who have little concept of boats and less concept of luxury..!) it is moored on the banks of a river heading north from the upper lough erne, in county fermanagh, alongside about a dozen others, most of which are seemingly owned by friends of emma's parents or relations of the butcher from up the road, or so-and-so from james's classes' parents.
we set up house, and then get drunk. we laughed heartily, told some sad stories, some family stories, school stories...and a few about how good god is..tried to make emma say rude words (which, it appears, is probably more tricky than trying to get me to talk about poo....) we ate salmon when already drunk, we drank more wine than i knew we had brought, we smoked cigarettes enroached with rizla-packet-tear-offs, to the point that all that remained was a pile of papers with nowhere to go....we each left drunken messages for poor mr vino, whose impending marriage formed a large part of the evening's conversation...emma and i sang, badly, and not for long.....mostly we laughed. the boat was an instant home to us and we loved it.

when we woke, the hangovers didn't last long....the fruit salad and coffee saw them off for us....but then what do you suppose happened.....?

the sun, the sun came out, and there it stayed. the suntan i jokingly prayed for on the plane....? its here, its on me. i got it.....we sat out on deck, painted our toe-nails and drank more coffee, read our books, wrote our books, and in general were at ease. rosemary and jimmy arrived later, and off we went on a trip down the river to the lough and back again. we moved along the river having types of birds pointed out to us and then argued over like only parents can do.....we drank coke and ate crisps and kind of felt like kids i think. the cowan parents are, it seems, such innately parenty parents that if you are roughly their child's age, they'll adopt you for as long as they can see you. we moored again the other side of several miles of lake and a few islands.....we ate, slept, walked, and the time it just went on and on....it was half four when i thought it surely nearing eight.....madness.....on the way back, we all found our place on the boat. drago of the indoors was reading on the couch......snuggled and warm with a hundred layers over her. she had lamb and the chilli peppers on the laptop and was content, i think....claire and emma huddled like a pair of old washer-women, car blankets round them and sitting at the very front of the boat, headed towards the sun going down and being as close as friends are when they know that one is about to get married and they don't want to miss out on anything that might happen before then.....jimmy and rosemary steered the boat and loved eachother like kids i think..she smoking away, him with his tea and his life-jacket.....me i found a small seat in the corner right at the back......i got my hat and jacket so the wind didn't bother me.....the sunset on the river and through the trees on the islands around us was not even photographable...well, i just mean it was too good for photos....with a cigarette and a cup of tea in one hand, and the - death of a naturalist - in the other, i was as happy as i can remember being.....he is from this way, you see, seamus heaney, and it shows....when i studied this book for gcse english, i realised i could understand poetry by myself. i also realised i was glad to be irish, and didn't need to be proud just to be glad. i became friends with paul f over that book, and also learned to write poetry a bit because of it, i think. punctuation is very important to him. as are all aspects of nature, and ways in which man uses and enjoys nature are kind of themes. it turned out that that dog-earred copy in my lap had been used not only by emma and later her brother james while at school, but also by rosemary, in 1974...reading it was good right then because i saw that i was different from when i last read it...but also the same, i think.

i found one poem in it that i do not ever remember reading before.
rashly or not, i there and then named it my favourite of the book.

and here it is....


scaffolding

masons, when they start upon a building,
are careful to test out the scaffolding;

make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

and yet all this comes down when job's done
showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

so if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
old bridges breaking between you and me

never fear. we may let the scaffolds fall
confident that we have built our wall.


i'd like to know how it feels to build love.

i haven't enjoyed writing for a long time as much as i have this morning.
i still have a few hours left, so i'm off to make soup for the girls for when they return from their walking tour of the county.
if you have got this far, thanks.
back home tonight. love you x

am i living it right...?

why georgia....? as the song goes....
or why clonmel, co. tipp., in this case....
here's the why....
the fleagh cheoil...

...i'm so excited! we leave in a couple of hours, me and fifi, in holly, for the ferry, and for green hills and fields, for familia, for moynihans bar, for stradbally beach, and for alot alot of drinkin beer in the street with your hand in your pocket...what scandal..!
and, i hope, for some quality time with the good lord...i need it. and here is so successfully squishing me.....so i'm off chicos....laters...x x x

so yeah..

i talked to one of my very best friends this evening. i told her about my week....and she asks me, only at the point when she's sure i'm thinking it myself anyway - "so where is your god now?"
ouch
see what's happened, now, jesus? see the fear and doubt creeping in? see the path that is now open wide, inviting these enemies in? see where your negligence has got you? or was it? was it your negligence, or your will? the catholics among my family (which is pretty much 85% of them), while shaken, are able to see nothing only your will at work. i, on the other hand know that other forces operate in the world besides you, with less benevolence and good ideas on their minds.......and yet, while they have power, surely, surely, you're meant to be greater.
this is the most honest i can be with you god, and it's taken me most of a bottle of chilean chardonnay and plenty cigarettes to get me to this point.......ok, so, listen up, cos here's the thing..
i do not understand you. i thought that in jesus you had made your good, perfect, kind and gracious will plainly known to all of us. don't get me wrong, i have no reservations about why you want martin o'brien there, with you, wherever the fuck you are. but seriously - now? really? couldn't you just have waited another little while? couldn't you just have stayed awake and kept watch over him?
so, here's the deal. i shall keep on believing that you exist. because the sky, and particularly its sunsets of late, has been too incredible for any cosmic explosion to accidentally design. and the kindness of people around us has been too deep and thoughtful to ever be the product of chemicals and hormones, too sincere to be acted out of duty, and too well-timed to be anything but heavenly-sent. see, its not that i fail to notice you where you are at work. not at all. its that i fail to see how you can jusitfy not working where you are most needed.
thing is i love you. i know i'm pretty much buggared without you. but i refuse to remain stuck to you for anything less than the deepest love - for without that we'd be left with mere religion, and i left that behind me long ago. so come, my lord, show me where you are, where you are working, where your love is awaiting us. show me your hands, you know, the ones that heal, the ones that tell us we are whole.

an bus eireann..

well these were thursday's offerings......
they may sound small, but they were pretty cool lessons to learn on a dublin - clonmel bus of a thursday afternoon.......i'm loving being here - having an amazing time - cate drago hdc, all y'all fanx for your messages.....keep praying please......cate - it would seem the whole book of james is my food.....fanx for that..love you x x x x x


When peacemakers plant seeds of peace, they will harvest justice (James 3:18)

When I seek peace, and I pursue it, why do i? most of the time I do not seek it in order that I may plant it elsewhere. I seek it for my own rest, my own contentment.
Jesus help me to want the peace you give me to be only a demonstration of your goodness and power – not something I keep to myself but something I pass onto others or to the land – for you to be seen as beautiful.


The prayer of an innocent person is powerful (James 5:16)

The more I think about it the more I think it not entirely impossible that god may group people together in the assurance that one kind of sin is particularly non-existent in each person – as in, one person who does not struggle with lust will be present in every group within the body – or someone who doesn’t get angry or overly proud…..would it be that god positions his people so that we each have access to one “innocent person” who can pray for us in the given power….was talking to matt about it a bit the other day, and now with this it makes good sense to me.
Jesus please put in me a hunger to always know how to pray – not just when but for who and about what….sounds simple but this would change everything for me and the people I know…..help my mind to start to understand and see the perfect ways in which you strategise and plan…we need to cover one another more in prayer – help us to see who is the absolute best person to pray for who…our prayers are random and kinda haphazard, compared to what I’m starting to think they could be…help us to be more purposeful in this more conscious of each other and yet not wanting to be the first to jump in a pray – but waiting for the person who will pray the prayer most effectively….crap its all very complex….

Man, just read my “utmost..” (still not sorry, resa!{love you})for the evening...he talks about our lack being what gets us to god – not our decisions or our goodness….he says that it is in our unconscious actions that we most influence others – because this is where it is Jesus at work for sure and not us…..he says “if we are conscious of our influence, it ceases to have the genuine loveliness which is characteristic of the touch of jesus”..
Shit are we in trouble….
I know that of late I have balked at the words of others when they tell tales of what they prayed well for someone, or the positive influence they were able to have over a person or in a situation….shit I so do not want to be the person that dos that anymore….god seriously, even for the most basic reason that the more we are so overjoyed at having prayed/prophesied the exact right thing over someone, the more it shows how extraordinary that is to us – this needs to be breath to us, man, the most normal occurrence of everyday life…knowing what god wants and praying or being it into action…..
It should not be something so unheard of that we can then distort it so that it goes down on our score sheet……..Jesus come on man, how low can we go…? Please help us know what to speak aloud for the encouragement of others, and what to store in our hearts like Mary – and what to not even recognize – I jus think mainly our minds need cleaning out , well, ok, let just say mine, cos shit, I’m not meant ot be preaching at anyone right now….this is for me, god, I don’t wanna throw whatever good you do in my life or through me back in your face by owning it and triumphing over it…….
fink that's about it for today...

hola todos..

well i'm on vacaciones now...please pray for me.....i pretty much need it!
keep checking here - i'll be on everyday - am anticipating thinking alot and hopefully figuring out a few things - they'll be on here....be here too or be a square floo....x