An imperious wave of the hand from Kevin Myers

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Journalist Kevin Myers has had wall-to-wall media coverage in recent weeks. The commentariat have been talking about him and he has been talking too about himself.

His column in the Irish edition of 'The Sunday Times' crossed a line, well, two lines. The piece was deemed anti-Semitic and also misogynistic.

It's baffling how the article managed to appear in the paper. I worked as a subeditor at 'The Kerryman' newspaper and from what I know about subediting if such an article arrived on my desk my immediate reaction would be to pass it on to the editor. And if the editor wasn't happy with it she/he would seek advice. And usually newspapers err on the side of caution.

It is a mystery how the article saw the light of day.

Myers has a penchant for causing controversy but it's doubtful he realised that there would be such a furore and that he would lose his job with Murdoch as a result of what he said in the column.

The vast majority of comment has strongly condemned Myers on his reference to the highly-paid women employees at the BBC, who are of the Jewish faith.

I have been to Auschwitz, was there in 1987, saw the remains of the horror. I have also been to Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. I have seen the name plates on the footpaths in Berlin, marking the houses from which victims, including large numbers of Jews, were savagely taken to the death camps. And I have read Hans Fallada's 'Alone in Berlin'.

People of the Jewish faith have suffered far too much. And it's only right and proper that a single word, phrase or gesture, which hints at anti-Semitism is treated as it should be - banished from the face of the earth.

Nor can there be a hint of misogyny. Women have suffered far too much at the hands of men. Indeed, they still suffer. Over 60 million girls worldwide are married before the age of 18. Women account for 70 per cent of the world’s population living in absolute poverty, which means less than 85 cent a day.

It will be 20 years in November that Kevin Myers turned his guns on me. I had completed a post-grad course in journalism, spent three months working with 'The Irish News' newspaper in Belfast. 

And as a result of those three months I wrote 'An Irish Man's Diary' about my experience in Belfast. Within two days Kevin replied in his column.

I was a novice at writing, Kevin was a seasoned and established journalist. Ouch, did he attack me and indeed, the Dominican Order of which I am a member. It's fair to say he accused me of 'tribal sneering'.

Of course, it was all part of the 'banter' of journalism. But I felt it was a little like using a sub-machine gun to take out a fly.

Then some months later while we were both speaking at a Goldsmith Summer School I mentioned in good humour the spat that we had. Gosh did he dismiss me with a wave of his imperious hand. And that's alright too. I can fight my own corner.

But what must it be like for the really little people who have no one to speak up for them.

And that happens all the time. Isn't that why so many people feel alienated and get angry?

We can never go far enough to protect victims and support the weak and fragile.

Isn't that one of the basic mission statements of Christianity -  take care of the little person. Be kind to the weak and stranger. The day we are glib about that we have lost our moral compass.

Secularisation

Surely it's better and safer to live in a secular society than in a religious-run State?

Is it not true to say that many people who criticise 'secularisation',  they themselves live off the backs of everything that has to do with secularisation?

The Berlin Wall

August 13, 1961 fell on a Sunday and on that Sunday morning the perople of Berlin woke to discover that their city was being divided by barberd wire.

It would later develop into the Berlin Wall that divided West Berlin from the capital city of the German Democratic Republic.

It lasted 28 years, falling as a result of peaceful means in 1989.

The German Democratic Republic referred to the Wall as an Antifaschtischen Schutzwall - an anti-fascist protection wall.

The Catholic Church was one of the few, if only, organisation that spanned the Wall. The cardinal bishop of all Berlin lived in Bebel Platz, off Unter den Linden and the diocese of Berlin included both East and West.

During the period of the Wall the German Dominicans were particularly generous to Dominicans in Warsaw Pact countries.

On a regular basis, indeed, every few weeks, a truck-load of provisions were sent from the Dominican Priory in Berlin's Oldenburger Strasse to the Dominican Priory in Cracow.

The Christian churches in the West, but specifically the German churches, gave generous financial support to countries east of the rivers Elbe and Oder.

Cork-bound seagull? Hardly

Spotted on top of coach F on the 07.00 ex Heuston Cork train service today.

The seagull is hardly travelling but, if so does it have the Travel Pass?

Ah most unlikely, the train is now nearing Sallins and no footprints to be heard overhead.

Travelling in perfect comfort. The first train in the morning to Cork has to be a traveller's delight. Coach G, right behind the locomotive and the furthest up the platform.

What must it be like in a queue at Dublin Airport and then the terror of everything that is about flying, sparse legroom, crowded planes, playing a significant role in helping destroy the planet? Rail travel on the 07.00 Dublin Cork service is fit for a prince.

And along this track one can see right over to Turlough Hill. Above over the clouds not a single air passenger can even get a hint of the beauty of Ireland this morning.

Shush, not a word about the difference in price. Always vulgar to talk about money.

Flying can be a mug's game.

But not for the seagull, of course and that's probably what she/he is doing right now but closer to Dublin no doubt.

What the CDF can do

I felt, and continue even today to feel, like a broken man who can never fully recover from the suspicion, which the authority of my church - a church which I love and have served during my whole life - has thrust upon me. The joy of living has gone, perhaps never to return.

Words from the Belgian Jesuit, the late Jacques Dupuis, on the devastating impact made by the CDF's attacks on his work, and of his disgust at the way Cardinal Ratzinger defended an unjust and dishonest inquiry.

That same broken feeling has been experienced by a number of Irish theologians and writers.

And then the Catholic Church wonders 'what's gone wrong'.

So much.

They don't do 'religion'

The cover page  of the current edition of The Tablet.

A Very British Coup

The link below is to a piece in yesterday's Guardian.

It recalls the excellent 1988 TV mini-series A Very British Coup.

Labour leader, Harry Perkins, played by Ray McAnally, is elected prime minister. He proves a great PM. The establishment decides to get rid of him.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/09/prime-minister-corbyn-very-british-coup-establishment-backlash?CMP=share_btn_link

Edith Stein was gassed on this day in1942 in Auschwitz

The Catholic Church celebrates today the feast of Edith Stein.

She was born in Breslau, then part of the German Reich, today in Poland, in 1892 into a family of the Jewish faith.

She was a philosopher, rubbed shoulders with Martin Heidegger.

Became an atheist, then a Catholic. Joined the Carmelites.

She was gassed on this day, August 9, 1942 at Auschwitz.

"God is truth. All who seek truth seek God, whether this is clear to them or not,” Edith Stein.

Just a thought on the anniversary of the day she was gassed by the Germans at Auschwitz, and on the day after United States President Trump has spoken of unleashing a “fire and fury this world has never seen”.

Clever cycling quotes

This appears in the bicycle shed at St Vincent's Hospital. Clever.

The Einstein quote is: Lif is like a bicycle - in order to keep your balance you have to keep moving.

What must Francis think of his US pro Trump bishops?

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Some weeks ago an English Catholic magazine referred to Steve Bannon as a practising Catholic. When I read that I nearly choked on my porridge. It really was hilarious. Steve Bannon has married three times and has divorced three times. Then again, these days, people are talking about ‘alternative facts’. But I have to admit that the piece confused me.

Leaving aside his marital status it’s plain to see that Mr Bannon, a trusted adviser and friend of President Trump is a right-wing zealot who wants to destroy all and every trace of anything that smacks of liberal or moderate thinking. Bannon was a founding member of far-right Breitbart News, which is racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic. It would appear Bannon does not believe in compromise.

If Steve Bannon is what Catholicism is about then it’s time for me to leave the church. It really is amazing the latitude many church people can give to extreme right-wing thinking.

We really are being battered from every side. It’s difficult to remain sane in the days that are in it.

The Trump administration is not noted for telling the truth. I’m reminded of that infamous comment from Vladimir Lenin that a lie told often enough becomes a truth. Is that what alternative facts are?

When Anthony Scaramucci, otherwise known as the Mooch, gosh please don’t confuse him with our Gooch, lost his job in the White House, it was reported that President Trump said that he had to go because of inappropriate language he had used. 

I have heard of examples of the pot calling the kettle black but this really takes the biscuit. Trump sacking someone for inappropriate language. He’s talking about pardoning himself. Maybe he needs to think about sacking himself. The language Trump has used has been every bit as inappropriate as anything Scaramucci has said, maybe even worse.

Trump and his team cleverly pandered to an American religious extreme right wing coalition and managed to garner their votes. But he also picked up a wider Christian vote. In an opinion piece in The New York Times on August 2, Ross Douthat talks about a ‘cheerfully pagan Trump’ getting the religious vote. Douthat points out that as politics in the US has grown more polarised, the Catholic position has become ‘more difficult and perplexing’.

Sometimes it might seem that the President says the first thing that comes into his head. But most likely he is far more thoughtful than we think. If you look at his team you will quickly realise they are right-wing. And he now has four army generals in his cabinet. One might be forgiven for thinking that the US has been taken over by an army coup.

Trump’s popularity is now on the floor. Yes, he still has a fanatical support base but that can’t last too much longer. When the coal mines stay idle and the factories in the rust belt remain closed even his die-hard support will begin to wobble.

History tells us that going to war boosts the popularity of a leader.

North Korean President Kim Jong-Un is proving to be the perfect bogey man for the Trump administration.

While the shenanigans in the White House may make for fun television every evening, we are living in scary times.

Trump has not shown any signs of being good at diplomacy, something that the world needs in spades in the current tension-filled atmosphere.

All the time Mother Russia and The Middle Kingdom or China watch on. And what must Pope Francis think of the alignment between Trump and some of the US bishops?

The wrong people in jobs

Two most readable pieces.

The first comes from The New Yorker and is a damning comment on the Trump administration.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-is-donald-trump-still-so-horribly-witless-about-the-world

The second article is from The New York Times.

It is a commenatary on how conservative Catholicism is out of kilter with the views and opinions of Pope Francis.

Alas, is the hope that Francis is offering the church too late for the Irish Catholic Church?

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/europe/vatican-us-catholic-conservatives.html?_r=0&referer=https://t.co/MY85t7wMrR

False allegations

This is a link to a piece in the Irish Independent and worth a read.

Fr Tim Hazelwood is a priest of the diocese of Cloyne.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/youre-presumed-guilty-and-priests-are-terrified-irish-priest-falsely-accused-of-sexually-abusing-a-child-35972984.html

Transfiguration

Imagine to be transfigured, to be changed, to change, to grow and develop into something better and stronger.

Imagine not to be afraid, imagine to be excited about heading out on an adventure, taking on new projects, turning our backs on the staid and failed ways.

Inspector Franey speaks wise words to church 'leaders'

There is a feature piece in The Irish Times today about Garda Inspector Paul Franey, who is one of eight gardaí taking part in today's Belfast's Pride march.

While the page-long piece is about what life is like for a gay man in the Garda it also offers exceptionally wise words on the importance of Human Relations in any organisation.

Inspector Franey writes:

HR taught me that all the problems and all the solutions in the Garda at the moment revolve around HR issues. They revolve around people. The Garda is a very people-based organisation.

And then later he writes:

I saw it in HR - you put the right sergeant on to a unit, it'll be a fantastic unit. Stick the wrong person in and the unit simply won't work.......

There are many similarities between gardaí and priests.

Is there one single Irish priest whose specific work is HR. Is there a diocese or religious congregation who gives a moment's thought to HR?

Most unlikely. Priests attempt to study many 'ologis' but it would seem there is no attention at all given to HR.

Management skills in the Irish Catholic Church are abysmal. And probably a significant reason why the church is where it is today.

Elsewhere in the piece Inspector Franey writes:

How do you show people in an organisation that's as important as ours, doing work that's as important as ours, how valuable the work that they do is for communities, for people who are victims of crime.

Inspector Franey will have no idea of the prophectic words he is writing to the Irish Cartholic Church.

When ever does a bishop or a provinical pick up the phone to say a word of support to a foot-soldier? When does a bishop or provincial drop by for a cup of tea or coffee? 

Certainly, it doesn't happen in the organistion of which I am a member.

Dominicans get mention in 'The Tablet' of July 29

A few interesting references to the Dominicans in The Tablet of July 29.

The Dominican philosopher Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges wrote in reply  Pope Benedict XV' call for peace in World War l:

Most Holy Father we cannot for an instant entertain your appeals for peace. Like the apparent rebel in the Gospel, we are sons who reply, 'No, no.

In another article in the same edition there is a profile of the new Master of Balliol College, Oxford, Dame Helen Ghosh.

While a student at Oxford along with meeting her husband, she also encountered the Dominicans at Blackfriars, who have provided her with spiritual nourishment ever since.

Oxford has been her home for many years and she has kept up links with the Dominicans, including chairing their charity, the Blackfriars Overseas Aid Trust.

She has spent most of her working life as a civil servant. As Home Office Permanent Secretary she did not manage to get on too well with her political boss, Theresa May.

Usain Bolt runs his last

God put me on this earth to run, and that's what I am going to do.

Usain Bolt, is about to run his final 100-metre race in the World Athletics in London.

He'll be missed.

Request to Brendan Walsh, new editor of 'The Tablet'

A call to Brendan Walsh, the new ediotr of The Tablet.

Is there any possibility that cirulcation of The Tablet could be improved?

On one occasion two arrive the same day, on another occasion two editions arrive within two days.

And the name of the country in the English language is Ireland and Éire in Irish. Why does The Tablet insist on printing Éire, especially since it is posted in Ireland to its Irish readers?

Social media

The social media is the coward's charter.

Maurice Manning Chancellor of the National University of Ireland.

Professor Manning made the statement in an RTE interview discussing the controversy surrounding former taoiseach Brian Cowan receiving an honorary doctorate from NUI.

God protect us from further lurches to the right

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

US Senator John McCain cut a noble figure last Tuesday when he returned to Washington to vote in the Senate on a health bill.

The 80-year-old Republican Senator from Arizona made some powerful remarks on the floor of the US Senate just a few short days from surgery having been diagnosed with a brain tumour.

At the end of his talk he quipped that he was going home for a while to treat his illness but that he had every intention of returning to the Senate and 'giving many of you cause to regret all the nice things you said about me'.

The thrust of his speech was on the importance of cooperating and trusting one another, no matter what ones's politics or beliefs are.

'I hope we can again rely on humility, on our need to cooperate, on our dependence on each other to learn how to trust each other again and by so doing better serve the people who elected us. 

'Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the internet. To hell with them. They don’t want anything done for the public good. Our incapacity is their livelihood.

'Let’s trust each other. Let’s return to regular order. We’ve been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. 

'That’s an approach that’s been employed by both sides, mandating legislation from the top down, without any support from the other side, with all the parliamentary manoeuvres that requires.'

I'm sure I stated it here before that I bought myself an internet radio and came across a US station called 'Patriot Radio'. It is almost impossible to describe it. It is wall-to-wall screaming and roaring. 

A non-stop barrage at everyone and everything that is not in agreement with its right-wing  philosophy.

The night that Trump won the US presidential election I stopped listening to it but just last week I tuned in again.

According to 'Patriot Radio' everything that Trump says is correct and everyone who disagrees with him is a source of ridicule, laughter and fun. It is shocking stuff and exactly the sort of 'bombastic radio' that John McCain criticised last week.

It is sneering and nasty and has some weird ability of giving the impression that it is taking the moral high ground.

It really is crazy radio but it has high listenership ratings in the US.

Unfortunately, there seems to be something about the ultra right-wing that gives people the impression that they are talking in the name of justice and right, that they are actually the mouthpiece of all that is correct.

Alas, nothing could be further from the truth. Maybe I am being somewhat biased but I can't help but believe that extreme right-wing politics and religion express the nastiest and most insidious ideas that plague the earth.

They manage to create an atmosphere of hate and intolerance that is never matched by left-wingers or wishy-washy liberals. And they always seem to be united in a way that is the envy of any so-called left-wing or middle-of-the-road organisation.

It's a philosophy or way of thinking that is merciless.

It is a mood or a trend that is currently gaining ascendancy within different belief systems, including the Christian churches. At the best of times churches tend to be right-wing. God protect us from further lurches to the right.

It would be interesting to know exactly what Pope Francis thinks of so much of the right-wing thinking and practices that go on within the Catholic Church.

Tattoos and bicycles

This week's Sunday Letter.

Michael Commane

When I was a young fella tattoos were a rarity. They were more or less the preserve of sailors and seafarers. You would see the occasional one on  an arm.

And now they are everywhere and on all body parts. Last week in St James's Hospital I saw a young woman with her legs covered in tattoos.

That same day there was a news item about  a grandfather, who was taken off a Ryanair plane allegedly for bad behaviour. He claimed he was 'fingered' because of his tattooed face, which was posted on social media.

And it seems the US Army and Navy too are now permitting its soldiers sailors to sport tattoos below the elbow.

They're everywhere.

Did the current fashion begin with the Premiership footballers? I'm inclined to think so, but I may be incorrect. 

Thinking about it, they are not too common among jockeys. Indeed are there any Irish politicians sporting tattoos?

Would it look odd if the Taoiseach turned up at a function with a tattoo on his arm or if the Catholic archbishop of Dublin arrived out on the altar, also with an arm tattoo?

And now to bicycles. Again when I was a young fella, or maybe better to say when I was in my 20s and 30s there were not too many bicycles out and about in the city. 

And even if there were, it certainly was not a fashion item. 

These mornings when I try to cross the road outside the church at 08.00 bicycles are roaring down the road, heading for town at great speed. One wrong step and it could be disaster.

A mix of speed, style, women and men, plodders, fellas and girls, some in lycra, some with cameras on their helmets, some wearing fitbits. A lot of fancy bicycles too? It's a sort of catwalk on wheels. And most of them look so serious and determined. 

I've never had a tattoo and I'm cycling a bicycle 63 years.    

I hope to keep cycling and remaining tattoo-less. A stick-in-the-mud on wheels?

Fashions constantly change. Is there anything constant?

Photographer who brought Vietnam war to homes dies

John Morris, the man who took this famous picture during the war in Viernam, died in Paris on Friday. He was 100 years old.

World Press Photo announced that 'a legend had died'.

Morris was born in Chicago in December 1916. He had been living in Paris for many years.

Trump and his gang

This is the link to the famous or infamous Scaramucci interview in The New Yorker.

Earlier in the week he was interviewed by BBC 2's Emily Maitlis. His behaviour was bizarre and it was astonishing television.

This is the team running the United States of America. It  is a telling example of the nastiness of the right-wing.

And politics is not their only home.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/anthony-scaramucci-called-me-to-unload-about-white-house-leakers-reince-priebus-and-steve-bannon

Census Night results

The preliminary total for the population enumerated on Census Night Sunday, April 24, 2016 was 4,757,976 persons, compared with 4,588,252 persons in April 2011, an increase of 169,724 persons since 2011 or 3.7 per cent. This translates into an average increase each year of 33,945 persons or 0.7 per cent. 

Over the previous inter-censal period between 2006 and 2011 the population increased by 348,404 persons or 8.2 per cent, which equates to an annual average increase of 1.6 per cent.

Lost memories encased in a Dominican church

The piece below was sent to this blog.

Interesting what Fr Coyne has to say about the now closed Dominican church in Athy.

Both Philip Hamilton Pollock and Peter Coyne were Irish Dominicans.

Philip Pollock died in Waterford in 1978 and Peter Coyne died in Athy in 1984.

Flying high

In 1992 five million passengers came through Dublin Airport. Twenty-six million passengers used the airport in 2016. 

Thirty-three million people travelled through Ireland last year.

In 1992 Knock Airport, now called Ireland West saw 105,646 passengers go through its doors. This year the airport will cater for 750,000 passengers.

Every day Ryanair operates 1,800 flights across Europe and the airline carries 120 million passengers every year.

And it is all because of the EU Open Skies policy. 

So easy to miss so much

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

By the time this appears in the newspaper the blue skies may have disappeared and been replaced with cloud and rain. That's Ireland for you. But so far this summer it's not been too bad. 

Not only that, only last week I heard someone complaining about the 'heat'. And that's Ireland for you too, and its people.

But last week was spectacular and is there anywhere in the world more beautiful than Ireland when it is covered with bright blue skies. On Monday of last week there was not a hint of a cloud to be seen anywhere in Ireland.

The following day a work colleague was chatting with friends and showing them a picture of her parents who had just arrived in Mauritius on holiday. A smart aleck quipped that they would have been better off staying at home in Ireland and basking in the Irish sun. 

They'd have saved themselves the airfare, avoided the hassle of an airport, the discomfort of sitting in an airplane seat and have done the environment a power of good by minimising their carbon footprint.

But it is striking how we can travel all over the world and yet miss what is right in front of our noses.

On the Monday of last week I took to the bicycle in the afternoon. It was just to get some exercise and get away from what I was doing. I was finishing off a book review and needed to get out. The tide was the wrong way for a swim so the bicycle was the next best thing.

The plan was to head out on a well-worn route, call to a friend and then cycle back home. In all it would have been approximately 18 to 20 kilometres. Neither wind nor rain, blue skies, perfect weather for cycling.

I had gone less than two kilometres when I decided the route I was taking was boring, nothing special about it. And just as I was toying with the idea of taking a different route I passed a small laneway. 

Earlier in the day I had been looking at a map and had spotted that there was a small lake close to school playing fields. I knew I was in the area of the playing fields, so why not cycle up the laneway? It's just what I did and to my surprise and amazement I spent the next hour being enthralled by fabulous woodland, a small stream and a lake. 

And it was the perfect day for it. What has surprised me most of all is the fact that I have cycled passed that place for so many years and never before thought of simply turning right and exploring what was at the top of the laneway.

But isn't that the story of our lives. We seem to be programmed in some strange or odd way that makes us fit into grooves and then move forward and backward. It's seldom we have the inclination or the will to look out over the parapet and see what's going on just metres away from where we are.

Of course most of us think we are adventurous, far more enlightened than the generations that went ahead of us. Alas, from my experience, there's not that much movement away from our comfort zones.

Come to think about it, isn't that exactly what a prophet is, someone who has the ability to read the signs of the times and then try to put a shape on things. The prophet, like Plato's gadfly, is never at home with the status quo.

Can a prophet ever be popular?

Japanese touch in Rathgar

A reader mailed this picture.

It is a variegated Japanese Maple on Frankfort Avenue in Rathgar, Dublin 6.

'The Tablet' editorial on the 'culture war' phenomenon

Interesting and informative editorial in The Tablet this week.

It's about the state of the Catholic Church in the United States.

A number of excerpts:

Many bishops have led the American Church into the scenario known as the 'culture wars'......

The real question the Vatican must face is why it allowed this division in the Catholic Church in America to fester for many years, why, in particular it appointed a slew of 'safe' conservative bishops, eager culture warriors, to replace faithful bishops who saw their mission as including the promotion of social justice and equal rights.

It goes on:

The Catholic hierarchy's failure to put its full weight behind healthcare reform is deeply troubling, given that those who suffer most from lack of healthcare are the poor.

It is an editorial well worth reading.

Indeed, it is not exclusively talking to or about the church in the United States.

It could well be talking to/about the Irish Catholic Church, the Irish province of the Dominican Order.

In the case of the Dominicans what has the management team in Ireland and in Rome done to prevent the polarisation and divisions that are taking place?

The answer: nothing. Indeed, it may well be that the management teams have helped bring about the difficulties.

Beauty of Bohernabreena

Stunning Bohernabreena yesterday.

And this gift of nature is 12 kilometres from Dublin city centre.

Incredible.

The magic of the ordinary

This week's Sunday Letter

Michael Commane OP
Some months back Mary was a patient in St Luke's Hospital. Her husband visited her every day.

We'll call them Mary and John Murphy, which are not their real names.

John is a bus driver with Dublin Bus and embarrassingly, I have to admit that I have a passing interest in buses. Sad to say, I can spot the difference between an SG and a GT Volvo, which are the newest designed buses in the fleet.

So over the weeks that Mary was a patient I had plenty of time to discuss the world of buses with John. Probably greatly annoyed and bored the man. But we had many laughs. He's good-natured and I think we enjoyed each other's company.

The 14 bus is now a cross-city route and works out of two depots, Donnybrook and Summerhill. John is based at Summerhill, which means he occasionally drives the 14.

I have been looking out for him for months, indeed, I have almost fallen off the bicycle while checking drivers on the 14.

Then three weeks ago when getting off a 14 I noticed I was on a Summerhill bus. I asked the driver did she know a John Murphy. She said she did, so I told her I knew him, gave her my name and asked her to say hello to him from me.

Within a week I received an SMS from John. The bus driver had passed on my greeting to him and he in turn sent me a text to say hello.

A tiny little episode in the scheme of things but how delightful. It put a smile on my face. And to add to the story, Mary, his wife, is in good health.

See, the little things. And all right in front of our eyes. Not in some far off exotic land but here in my own place.

Isn't it  the poet William Wordsworth who sees the extraordinary in the ordinary things right in front of us? At times so easy to miss, what a shame. But the magic when we see it.

Thoughts of a wise and kind 90-year-old Irish priest

A 90-year-old priest, and a good priest too, when asked what he thought of celibacy replied with one word: 'daft'.

"Indeed, I would do away with the three vows and replace them with three words; Sensitivity, Sharing, Service."