Thoughts, memories and other blessings arising from the life and gifts of John O'Donohue

Reflections on John O'Donohue

2009-11-14T14:48:00.000-08:00

-- by two old friends

In Friday's Irish Times (13 November), an essay entitled: Life melts our fear of old age and recasts it as a sweet reward, by Michael Harding appeared. The essay remembers John and his love of life.

An article by Michael D. Higgins, entitled: A Friendship and a blessing, followed in Saturday's edition (14 November) of the same publication, in which the author reflects on his friendship with John and comments on John's recently re-released book of poetry, Echoes of Memory.

For All Souls' Day

2009-10-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

From Anam Cara -- "Are Space and Time Different in the Eternal World?"

* * *

When the soul leaves the body, it is no longer under the burden and control of space and time. The soul is free; distance and separation hinder it no more. The dead are our nearest neighbors; they are all around us. Meister Eckhart was once asked, Where does the soul of a person go when the person dies? He said, no place. Where else would the soul be going? Where else is the eternal world? It can be nowhere other than here. We have falsely spatialized the eternal world. We have driven the eternal out into some kind of distant galaxy. Yet the eternal world does not seem to be a place but rather a different state of being. The soul of the person goes no place because there is no place else to go. This suggests that the dead are here with us, in the air that we are moving through all the time. The only difference between us and the dead is that they are now in an invisible form. You cannot see them with the human eye. But you can sense the presence of those you love who have died. With the refinement of your soul, you can sense them. You feel that they are near.

* * *

From Benedictus (To Bless The Space Between Us in the U.S.)

"On Passing a Graveyard"

May perpetual light shine upon
The faces of all who rest here.

May the lives they lived
Unfold further in spirit.

May the remembering earth
Mind every memory they brought.

May the rains from the heavens
Fall gently upon them.

May the wildflowers and grasses
Whisper their wishes into the light.

May we reverence the village of presence
In the stillness of this silent field.

(C) John O'Donohue. All rights reserved.
Permission requests should be directed to:linda@johnodonohue.com

www.johnodonohue.com

Radio Ireland - Interview about Echoes of Memory

2009-10-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

John's brother, Patrick O'Donohue, and John's dear friend, Lelia Doolan, gave a radio interview this morning on RTE radio 1. The progamme is "Today with Pat Kenny" and it is available as a podcast if you'd like to listen.

Collection of Poetry - Just Released in U.K.

2009-09-21T13:37:00.001-07:00

A new edition of John's collection of poems, Echoes of Memory (originally published in 1994), is now available for purchase in the United Kingdom.

A new US edition is planned for 2010.

In this powerful, evocative collection, master storyteller John O’Donohue explores themes of love and loss, beginnings and endings. Inspired by the ancient wisdom of the Celtic tradition and the rugged, majestic landscape of his birth, the west of Ireland, here he also creates a unique vision of a place and time, and the echo of a memory that will never fade.

In these poems, the west of Ireland landscape and climate in all their harshness are metaphors for the emotional climate of the work.

--Poetry Ireland Review

Speaking of Faith Interview to be re-broadcast

2009-09-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

Krista Tippett‘s 2007 conversation with John O‘Donohue,
“The Inner Landscape of Beauty: John O’Donohue’s Vision”
will air on public radio stations nation wide from
Thursday, September 17 through Wednesday, September 23.

For a list of US broadcast locations and times visit: http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/stations/index.shtml
The interview will also be available online: http://speakingoffaith.org

The Art of Developing a Beautiful Mind

2009-05-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

John had been scheduled to give a talk in Canada on March 30, 2008. We recently received from the organizer a copy of the short description John wrote about the topic he planned to address that night. She thought we might want to share it with all of you; and we do.

Here it is - just as he wrote it:

THE ART OF DEVELOPING A BEAUTIFUL MIND.

The world is not simply there. Everything and everyone we see, we view through the lenses of our thoughts. Your mind is where your thoughts arise and form. It is not simply with your eyes but with your mind that you see the world. So much depends on your mind: How you see yourself, who you think you are, how you see others, what you think the meaning of life is, how you see death, belief, God, darkness and beauty is all determined by the style of mind you have.

Your mind is your greatest treasure. We become so taken up with the world, with having and doing more and more that we come to ignore who we are and forget what we see the world with. The most powerful way to change your life is to change your mind. In this evening’s talk, we will explore ways of awakening, enriching and refining your mind. We will use lecture, conversation, story, poetry and meditation.

When you beautify your mind, you beautify your world. You learn to see differently. In what seemed like dead situations, secret possibilities and invitations begin to open before you. In old suffering that held you long paralysed, you find new keys. When your mind awakens, your life comes alive and the creative adventure of your soul takes off. Passion and compassion become your new companions. As St. Iraneus said in the 2nd Century: The glory of God is the human person fully alive.

April 17th - Concert in Memory of John O'Donohue

2009-04-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

*Almost Sold Out* (If you are planning to attend - be sure to call for tickets right away.)

John was a great fan and supporter of The Lismorahaun Singers, Community Choir (originally from Fanore, County Clare) and Director, Archie Simpson says that he was sustained in his efforts by John's encouragement through the nine years prior to his death.

In 2005, John opened their previous major concert in Ennistymon featuring Mozart's Requiem. The recording of that performance was played at John's funeral just a few years later, and the Lismorahaun Singers gave voice again in Galway Cathedral for John's public memorial.

They are now preparing a concert peformance of Mozart's Great Mass in C minor - in memory of John - to take place on April 17th at 8:30 pm in St. Michael's Church, Ennistymon, County Clare, Ireland.

The Lismorahaun Singers will be joined by more than 75 members of the London Symphony Chorus and The City of Dublin Concert Orchestra under the baton of Joseph Cullen, Principal Conductor of the LSC.

Soloists will be Sopranos Naomi O'Connell (former choir member from age 12 to 18 and now a Full Scholarship Post Graduate Performance Student at Julliard College in NYC) and Anne O'Byrne (Dublin born resident of Philadelphia, PA); joined by Baritone Alistair Ollerenshaw (a rising young star from the U.K.) and Tenor Peter O'Donohue (award winning singer and beloved nephew of John's). Also performing that night will be Katie O'Donohue, (young emerging Soprano and John's beloved niece).

Admission is €40.
For Credit Card Booking call Burren College of Art at 00 353 65 707 72 00.

***If you are not able to attend the concert, the first CD of The Lismorahaun Singers is available for purchase from the Burrenbeo Shop.***

Lismorahaun: Spiorad Spirit

The Burren is a place of boundless energy. Here the light is ever-changing. The grey limestone can suddenly discard its mantle of mystery and reveal an incadescent treasure of pinks and blues. This rockscape is framed by a deafening silence broken only by birdsong and whispering winds. The music of the Lismorahaun Singers is born in the Burren and with unrestrained energy deeply moves its audience. We may not yet be a choir of angels but just sometimes we experience a glimpse of the "Divine", This is Spiorad.

The Lismorahaun Singers are a dymanic and constantly evolving choir composed of people from all walks of life and ranging from age 7 to 72. Archie Simpson is Choral Director.

Featured soloists: Naomi O'Connell, Michael McCormack
and Amy McDonnell-Dowling
Spoken word: John O'Donohue
Uilleann Pipes: Davy Spillane
Piano: Roy Holmes
Accordion: Jugen Simpson
Artists: The Lismorahaun Singers

St Patrick's Day

2009-03-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Last year, in celebration of St. Patrick's Day, we posted this essay by John. Here it is again - in case you missed it!

Prologue to The Confession of St. Patrick.*

History is an amazing presence--it is the place where vanished time gathers. While we are in the flow of time, it is difficult to glean its significance, and it is only in looking back that we can recognize the hidden dimensions at work within a particular era or epoch. St. Patrick has always been acknowledged as a pivotal figure in early Irish history and spirituality. Yet despite this importance, his significance has often become rather caricatured in legend and in the retrospective intentionality that nostalgia often confers. And yet we need not be limited by what legend has given us, since we are fortunate in having documents from Patrick's own hand.

The Confession of St. Patrick provides a window into a remarkable life. Patrick is a figure who inhabits a crucial threshold in the evolution and definition of Irish spirituality. To serve this threshold demanded a singular commitment that engaged every resource and depth of character he possessed. His story revolves around an initial irony which qualifies his centrality in the Irish tradition.

It was Irish pirates who kidnapped him from his British home and sold him into slavery here. They could never have suspected the spiritual tradition that would be born out of their brutal action.

Indeed, the structure of this initial moment sets the rhythm of Patrick's subsequent life, namely, the praxis of a spirituality of transfiguration. His physical slavery releases him into a life of inner liberation. His captors only controlled his tasks and location but they never got near the eternal spring that was awakening in his young mind.

Patrick understands his slavery as the door into divine recognition and friendship. In this awful experience of alienation and exile, he discovers God as his anam-cara. Anam is the Irish word for soul and cara is the word for friend. The Anam-cara is the Friend of the soul. This is one of the most beautiful concepts in the Celtic tradition. An ancient affinity and belonging awakened between two people in the Anam-cara relationship. This relationship cut across all other connections. In your Anam-cara you discovered the Other in whom your heart could be at home. The depth and shelter of this Anam-cara belonging enables Patrick to endure the most awful conditions. Prayer is conversation with his Anam-cara:

But after I had come to Ireland, it was then that I was made to shepherd the flocks day after day, so, as I did so, I would pray all the time, right through the day. More and more the love of God and fear of him grew strong within me. And as my faith grew, so the Spirit became more and more active, so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers, and at night only slightly less. Although I might be staying in a forest or out on a mountainside, it would be the same; even before dawn broke, I would be aroused to pray. In snow, in frost, in rain, I would hardly notice any discomfort, and I was never slack but always full of energy. It is clear to me now, that this was due to the fervor of the Spirit within me.

Pascal said that in difficult times you should always keep something beautiful in your heart. Patrick is able to survive these harsh and lonely territories of exile precisely because he keeps the beauty of God alive in his heart. The inner beauty of the divine intimacy transfigures outer bleakness.

This inner intimacy brings his soul alive. It opens the world of the divine imagination to this youth. Consequently, he becomes available for his destiny in a new way. His dreams invite him to ever richer thresholds of his future. He is shown in a dream a ship that will take him away from slavery. The lantern of his dream guides him through two hundred miles of hostile territory to a harbor where strange sailors unexpectedly relent and take him aboard ship. Fascinating relics of ancient traditions glisten through this phase of the narrative.

His parents and friends are delighted at his return. He studies and becomes a priest and bishop. Yet his destiny is not to remain among what is familiar or complacent. Again the dream calls him to journey toward the next threshold. It is the dream of a letter from Ireland full of the "Voice of the Irish" calling him to "come back and walk once more among us." Patrick allows himself to be guided by the "vision in his dreams." He is "pierced to the core" by this request.

It is fascinating that the crucial new direction in his life is not determined by the clear calculations of the daytime but rather originate in the voices of dream in the depth of the night. Often the most original disclosures assemble in the unconscious and are deciphered through imagination and dream. Patrick is so attuned to this deeper dimension of soul that his sense of who he is rendered ever more complex by such new inner disclosures.

His sense of soul complexity finds its most fascinating expression in the frame-breaking experience that happens at that tender threshold somewhere between dream, prayer, and vision:

And on another night, "I do not know, only God knows" whether in me or outside myself, I heard the most wise words which as yet I could not comprehend . . .

In the moment of deepest divine encounter, the frames of normal perception are radically extended and intensified. Yet in contrast to some Oriental mysticism, the sense of the intimacy and belonging of the Self does not fade into anonymity of Nothingness:

And once again, I saw him praying within my soul, it was as if I was still inside my body, and then I heard him above, me, that is over my inner man.

Patrick is amazed at this intrusion or more precisely extrusion from his own depths. This new presence is not himself but yet is radically at one with him:

And as all this was happening, I was stunned and kept marveling and wondering . . . who he might be, who was praying in this wise within me.

But as this prayer was ending, he declared that it was the Spirit.

Patrick discovers that the deepest experience of prayer is not the mere verbal intention of an isolated subject directed at a distant deity. The deepest prayer is beyond subjectivity and objectivity. It is the echo of the inner membrane where the human soul dovetails into the divine. This is reminiscent of what Eckhart terms the Birth of God in the soul. This event liberates Patrick from oppression of outer constraint by absolutely confirming the depth, authenticity, and expressiveness of the inner wellspring He tells us: in such ways I have learned, by my own experience.

For any great spirit who must negotiate the great thresholds and indeed become a threshold the nourishment and sustenance of such inner confirmation is vital. He can travel on any dangerous or hostile outer journey because he knows he is at Home within. This is what sustains him in the lonely times of betrayal, misunderstanding, and scandal. Patrick is a strikingly modern figure in being ambivalent externally, however internally he inhabits the unity of innocence and authenticity. His singular independence is grounded in the sense of his own autonomy. It is reminiscent of Kierkegaard's statement: "Purity of heart is to will one thing."

Patrick's intimacy with the divine makes him painfully aware of his faults and unworthiness. Yet this recognition never becomes self-obsessive. He acknowledges that the tender mercy of God is deeper and more ultimate than mere human failing. His faults, therefore, do not become a barrier to either his destiny or growth. His difficulties with eros make Patrick real and interesting. They signal the charisma and passion of his personality and presence.

Patrick's presence is full of uaisleacht. The Irish word for nobility is uaisleacht; it also carries echoes of honor, dignity, and poise. Patrick exercised uaisleacht in relation to the people he shepherded. He served, defended, and cared for them, yet he refused any gifts or attempts to
claim him. He also exercised uaisleacht in relation to his own destiny. He constructed no kingdom of the ego. He opened himself to the ultimate calling and challenge of Otherness in its social, territorial, and spiritual forms:

For I know full well that poverty and adversity suit me better than riches and delights.

The range and intensity of his inner and outer exposure is both admirable and fascinating. Only a great soul could engage such otherness and still remain gentle and free.

A threshold is a place where different territories meet. Patrick is a great threshold. In him the pre-Christian and Christian dimensions of the Irish sensibility find an acute and balanced tension. Frequently in the Confessions we sense this meeting. Near the end he aligns the pre-Christian Celtic sense of the divinity of the sun with Christ: "the true sun . . . who will never die." In the Lorica attributed to Patrick, even though it comes three centuries later, we find a lovely balance of the pre-Christian and the Christian.

The Lorica derives its particular nuance from the absolute recognition of the omnipresence of God. The new day is understood as a gift of the divine. The very energy of awakening and arising is made possible by the love and care of God. Whatever the day holds is welcome because the ultimate origin and destination of the day is divinity. It explicitly recognizes the day in the light of the Trinitarian embrace. A day is no mere segment of anonymous and contingent time. A day is full of latent divinity:

I arise today
in a mighty strength
calling upon the Trinity,
believing in the Three Persons
saying they are One
thanking my creator.

This lyrical and direct evocation of the Trinity is then followed by a recognition of the Christological depth of our experience. Next the forces of the invisible world that secretly contribute to our destiny and experience are named and invoked. Then he names the elements and acknowledges how their latent divinity calls the individual forth out of the night into the energy and celebration of life:

I arise today
through strength in the sky:
light of the sun
moon's reflection
dazzle of fire
speed of lightning
wild wind
deep sea
firm earth
hard rock

The secret faithfulness of landscape is recognized here. It provides the where without which no life or object could exist.

Patrick draws constant attention to his rustic and unlearned sensibility. The depth and probe of his writings belie this. Yet it is true that the exploration and refinement of theological connections and nuance is neither his objective nor gift. Yet in his writings the pre-Christian and the Christian are always adjacent. Close enough to allow us to explore their embrace and recognize here a latent/nascent theology of Creation. A Celtic theology of Creation understands such continuity and interflow as vital, rich, and liberating.

--John O'Donohue
Conamara, Ireland

* This work was originally published as the Prologue for: The Confession of St. Patrick by John Skinner.
Used by permission of the publisher.

Celebrating and Sending Love

2009-02-13T12:11:00.001-08:00

A person should always offer a prayer of graciousness for the love that has awakened in them. When you feel love for your beloved and his or her love for you, now and again you should offer the warmth of your love as a blessing for those who are damaged and unloved. Send that love out into the world to people who are desperate; to those who are starving; to those who are trapped in prison; in hospitals and all the brutal terrains of bleak and tormented lives. When you send that love out from the bountifulness of your own love, it reaches other people. This love is the deepest power of prayer.

John O'Donohue Anam Cara ("The Wounded Gift" in chapter 1)

The Blessings of John O'Donohue

2009-01-28T08:35:00.000-08:00

Thoughts, written by Rev. John Dear, about John O'Donohue, his book "To Bless the Space Between Us" (Benedictus in the UK) and his work, can be found at today's National Catholic Reporter web site. *

"As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings, may your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills. When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance, may your imagination continue to evoke horizons."

As Barack Obama made his way to Washington D.C. for his inauguration last week, he stopped in Baltimore to greet a crowd of well-wishers. At the event, Maryland's Governor Martin O'Malley offered this blessing. It's from "For One Who Holds Power," (part of the collection To Bless the Space Between Us) by John O'Donohue, the Irish poet, philosopher and spiritual writer, who died a year ago.

As the dramatic events of last week unfolded, I found myself returning to John's writings to center myself, steep myself in his blessings and dig deeper contemplative roots. . . . for more

* We noticed a couple of errors in the article and offer these corrections:
John was in the south of France with his partner Kristine, visiting her parents; John's mother was not with them.
The doctor in France determined that John's death was caused by a heart attack.

Gov. O'Malley of Maryland greets Obama with a Blessing

2009-01-17T16:11:00.000-08:00

Saturday (January 17, 2009), on his way to Washington D.C. for his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama stopped in Baltimore, Maryland. He was greeted by Maryland's Governor Martin O'Malley and a crowd of well-wishers. As he welcomed the President-elect to Baltimore, Gov. O'Malley offered a blessing -- a reading of John O'Donohue's, For One Who Holds Power from To Bless the Space Between Us (entitled, Benedictus in the U.K.)

Death Transfigures Our Separation

2009-01-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

In the earliest hour of the fourth day of January, 2008, John O'Donohue died peacefully in his sleep. He had, only a few days before, celebrated his fifty-second birthday. For those who were with him on his birthday and in the few days that followed, memories of the time are filled with exuberant laughter, abiding love, and deep joy. His sudden departure took everyone by surprise.

Over the past year, we have heard from people all over the world offering beautiful condolences to those who feel most keenly his absence. They also express abundant gratitude for John's life and gifts. We cherish these messages and thank you all for reaching out to us.

There are a few who have asked us to share our own experiences in relation to John's passing. We find that our own words fail us when we are asked about our journey over this threshold; John's words, however, remain faithful. We turn to his books and poetry, and find there: understanding, compassion, and a steadying hand as we navigate the revised universe in which we find ourselves.

When Death Visits . . .

Death is a lonely visitor. After it visits your home, nothing is ever the same again. There is an empty place at the table; there is an absence in the house. Having someone close to you die is an incredibly strange and desolate experience. Something breaks within you then that will never come together again. Gone is the person whom you loved, whose face and hands and body you knew so well. This body, for the first time, is completely empty. This is very frightening and strange. After the death many questions come into your mind concerning where the person has gone, what they see and feel now. The death of a loved one is bitterly lonely. When you really love someone, you would be willing to die in their place. Yet no one can take another's place when that time comes. Each one of us has to go alone. It is so strange that when someone dies, they literally disappear. Human experience includes all kinds of continuity and discontinuity, closeness and distance. In death, experience reaches the ultimate frontier. The deceased literally falls out of the visible world of form and presence. At birth you appear out of nowhere, at death you disappear to nowhere. . . . The terrible moment of loneliness in grief comes when you realize that you will never see the deceased again. The absence of their life, the absence of their voice, face, and presence become something that, as Sylvia Plat says, begins to grow beside you like a tree.

* * *

Death Transfigures Our Separation . . .

It is a strange and magical fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said, "Being here is so much." It is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free. The more lonely side of being here is our separation in the world. When you live in a body you are separate from every other object and person. Many of our attempts to pray, to love, and to create are secret attempts at transfiguring that separation in order to build bridges outward so that others can reach us and we can reach them. At death, this physical separation is broken. The soul is released from its particular and exclusive location in this body. The soul then comes in to a free and fluent universe of spiritual belonging.

* * *

Death As An Invitation To Freedom . . .

If you really live your life to the full, death will never have power over you. It will never seem like a destructive, negative event. It can become, for you, the moment of release into the deepest treasures of your own nature; it can be your full entry into the temple of your soul. If you are able let go of things, you learn to die spiritually in little ways during your life. When you learn to let go of things, a greater generosity, openness, and breath comes into your life. Imagine this letting go multiplied a thousand times at the moment of your death. That release can bring you a completely new divine belonging.

* * *

from ANAM CARA: A Book of Celtic Wisdom John O'Donohue (c) 1997.

Other bloggers' remembrances
Gareth Higgins
a year ago today . . .
Pip Wilson

John's Favorite Films:

2008-12-01T08:52:00.000-08:00

John shared his time so generously with so many of us; and I feel particularly privileged to have known him in the context of conversations shared with our mutual friend Colin Wishart, a Scottish photographer and architect, whom John once referred to in my hearing as 'a real mystic'. Colin and I met each other by coincidence – as if there were such a thing – in John's city, Galway, a year before either of us had encountered John himself. We were there for a festival dedicated to the films of the Polish director Kryzstof Kieslowski, a cinematic poet of the deepest humanity. We both loved Kieslowski's films, but could not have known then how important they would be to conversations with the local mystic whom we had not even met yet.

Once John, Colin, and I had spent enough time together to consider ourselves friends for life, we coined the phrase 'better than Kieslowski' to denote anything we liked – ice cream, whiskey, art, music, even the way a cup of coffee tasted, but mostly just the depths of friendship. One of the last conversations I had with John touched upon how he considered love of this director to be almost a prerequisite for friendship!

Kieslowski is best known for two film series – the Decalogue, an abstract rendering of the Ten Commandments in contemporary life, and the three films that make up the Three Colours Trilogy – widely acclaimed as among the greatest films of the 1990s, taking as their theme the three facets of life represented in the French Tricolor flag – liberty, equality and fraternity. John loved these films – for their author seemed to know something about life that eludes the technojargon-dependent world in which we live: The meaning of freedom, partnership and family as outlined in the 'Three Colours' films is both attractive and sometimes difficult to understand – which, for John, meant it was worthy of attention.

In 'Blue', the first of the trilogy, Juliette Binoche plays a recently widowed character, who in grief comes to learn the need to let go of the things that hold her back from being truly free; but realises that happiness is not real unless it is shared.

Along the way, Kieslowski shows us through some of the most delicately beautiful imagery in cinema (a child's face lit within a traffic tunnel, a doctor reflected in a woman's eye, the light on a woman's face as she watches an elderly person try to recycle a bottle) what he feels about the world:

That giving to others is what makes you free.

That we need to learn discernment in a world which teaches us that television is reality.

That the only thing people really want to know is whether or not someone loves them.

That there is a relationship between the cross of Christ and love between human beings.

That the political unification of Europe may hide some unpleasant truths, but is a miracle given that only fifty years before the film was made, European nations were battling each other for the soul of the world.

That sexuality can be used both to heal and to sever.

'Blue' is a film about brokenness and the imagination of what new things could come to us if we let them. John would often ask the question 'If it is true that nothing good is ever truly lost, what would you like to have back?' The corollary to this, of course, is that there are some things that are worth letting go of. From the need for Europe to let go of its former enmity, to the old woman's need and desire to do good by letting go of the bottle for recycling (an image fundamentally related to making the world better for future generations, and a reminder of what this woman's generation suffered and struggled through in the Second World War era), to the central character's profound dilemma – grief and what to do with it, the images and themes in 'Blue' deserve repeating attention. It is such a rich film for times that often feel impoverished.

by Dr. Gareth Higgins

Next time: 'Three Colours White'

Grace (for Thanksgiving Celebrations)

2008-11-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

Grace Before Meals

As we begin this meal with grace,
Let us become aware of the memory
Carried inside the food before us:
The quiver of the seed
Awakening in the earth,
Unfolding in a trust of roots
And slender stems of growth,
On its voyage toward harvest,
The kiss of rain and surge of sun;
The innocence of animal soul
That never spoke a word,
Nourished by the earth
To become today our food;
The work of all the strangers
Whose hands prepared it,
The privilege of wealth and health
That enables us to feast and celebrate.

Grace After Meals

We end this meal with grace
For the joy and nourishment of food,
The slowed time away from the world
To come into presence with each other
And sense the subtle lives behind our faces,
The different colors of our voices,
The edges of hungers we keep private,
The circle of love that unites us.
We pray the wise spirit who keeps us
To change the structures that make others hunger
And that after such grace we might now go forth
And impart dignity wherever we partake.

-- To Bless The Space Between Us (BENEDICTUS)
by John O'Donohue (C)2007-2008. All rights reserved.

We are ready to post another essay by Gareth Higgins. Last November, John listed as one of his favorite film-makers, Kieslowski. Gareth is preparing a trilogy of essays about Kieslowski's three films: Blue; White; & Red. The first (BLUE) will appear on this blog next week.

warmly and with blessings,
Lindaa

A Link to Memories

2008-10-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a re-broadcast of a CBC interview with John. The re-broadcast was posted a fews days after John's death. The original interview was recorded in 2004.

The interviewer states that John was 53 when he died. This is a common mistake. Just to keep the record straight, John died just a few days after his 52d birthday.

The photo (below) of John was taken on Bowen Island (British Columbia) and was sent to us by Ann C.

John's Favorite Films - The Works of Tarkovsky

2008-09-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

There are no answers anymore, only choices –
Stanislaw Lem, Solaris

Andrei Tarkovsky is widely acknowledged as one of the most poetic and mystic film makers; for John O'Donohue, his work was so fundamentally important that he could not single out a particular favourite. When asked, he simply said (in his mischievous way), "I want ALL of Tarkovsky!" A clue to John's appreciation and enjoyment of Tarkovsky's work may be found in John's thoughts about beauty,

"Beauty is never simply in the mind alone. Beauty awakens for us through what we hear, touch taste, scent and see . . . In beauty's presence there is no longer any separation between thought and senses, between heart and soul. Indeed, the experience of beauty confirms the intricate harmony and creative tension of senses and thought."

--- BEAUTY: THE INVISIBLE EMBRACE,
Beauty and the Celtic Imagination: The Balance of the Mind and the Senses

In just seven key films Tarkovsky engaged the senses better than almost any other cinematic artist, in an exploration of spirituality and meaning. 'ANDREI RUBLEV', about a 14th century icon painter, and 'STALKER', about a dystopian science fiction future, are possibly his best known films; they stand alongside works such as 'THE SACRIFICE' – an extraordinary piece about the cost of love and a surreal spiritual journey on the cusp of the world's end, and 'MIRROR', which encapsulates a vision of childhood that manages also to tell much of the history of Russia.

I personally am most taken with 'SOLARIS', one of the most physically beautiful films ever made, about a psychiatrist's investigation into strange goings on in outer space. People on board a massive ship have encountered a presence that appears to grant all their wishes; make all their dreams come true; answer every question. While there is a political dimension to 'SOLARIS', in that it served as a kick in the teeth to the restrictions on freedom of thought at the heart of Soviet structures, this is a film about the fragility of love and the hope of some kind of eternal or eschatological future.

John touches on this theme often in his works. In his introduction to Callings in BENEDICTUS (entitled TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US in the U.S.), John writes:

From time immemorial it has been one of the deepest longings of the human heart to strain against the erosion of one's life, to find a way of living and being that manages to find some stable ground within time, a place from where something eternal can be harvested from our disappearance. This is what all art strives for: the creating of a living permanence.

In SOLARIS, the psychiatrist is visited by the dream of his dead wife, and offered the opportunity to stay with the unreal dream, or to return to the ambivalence of life lived only in the flesh. Tarkovsky's films are notable for their length, and slow meditative pace. Watching them requires attention, and an open heart. One version of the story told in SOLARIS has a character posing a question that John would have smiled at. When the character asks 'Am I alive or dead?', the answer comes back 'We don't have to think like that anymore.' The last image of the film is one of the most astonishing in cinema, and presents a profoundly moving evocation of the hope that lies at the source of all of searching: that God is not elsewhere, that we are loved, and nothing real is ever lost.

SOLARIS, and Tarkovsky's work in general, propose that the obsession with finding the 'answers' behind the mystery of life often distracts us from experiencing the mystery itself. It is possible to find holes in the statement 'There are no answers anymore, only choices' but I think there is a deep truth within it: To choose God above all else, when the chips are down, when the evidence is against us, to hope for something bigger than ourselves, to muster faith that what we have believed is real, to recall the times when we actually did believe it…well, you can't ask much more from an artist than that.

And the power of Tarkovsky's films is that, at their best, they transport us into a Presence we don't understand, but that we know we need. It's not quite the same thing as a transcendent moment in a cathedral, as the pipe organ swells, the incense intoxicates our senses, and the congregation experiences a moment of one-ness unparalleled elsewhere. But it's not totally different either.

A Note from Lindaa

I am so very grateful to have the list of John's Favorite Films and to be experiencing them in the company of Gareth's essay's. I have found that the series is opening a way for me to get to know John better than I had a chance to know him while he was in my visible world. It is a tender journey that cradles and comforts the enduring tenderness I feel each day in connection with John's passing.

I watched "Solaris" last week. Had I not had Gareth's essay to provide an alternative view, I would have found it very difficult to reconcile my initial negative reaction to the film with my understanding of John and his work. The gift of Gareth's essay was a shift in my perspective that set me thinking about how John so often called our attention to the wonder of imagination and our connection with the invisible world.

I began finding in John's writing, themes that Tarkovsky also evoked, and that I had not fully grasped while watching the film. For example, SOLARIS issues a challenge to a culture that places ultimate trust in purely (John might say "merely") verifiable, empirical facts. In BEAUTY, John wrote,

Our time is hungry in spirit. In some unnoticed way we have managed to inflict severe surgery on ourselves. We have separated soul from experience, become utterly taken up with the outside world and allowed the interior life to shrink. Like a stream that disappears underground, there remains on the surface only the slightest trickle. When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what we are here for visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.

--- BEAUTY: THE INVISIBLE EMBRACE,
The Soul as Twilight Threshold

Other places in BEAUTY that illuminated (for me) John's affinity for Tarkovsky's work:

'Teannalach'; and 'The Imagination Sees Through a Thing to the Cluster of Possibilities Which Shrouds It'

I would love to hear from you, and I'm sure Gareth would also enjoy receiving your thoughts and comments about the film(s).

warmly,
Linda Alvarez
Business Manager, John O'Donohue
linda@johnodonohue.com

John's Favorite Films - Next Week

2008-09-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

Next week, Gareth discusses the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, in general, and in particular, SOLARIS.

John's Favorite Films - Into Great Silence

2008-08-27T07:53:00.000-07:00

The Sound of Silence

-- by Dr. Gareth Higgins

In the midst of the election slow fever that had not really gripped northern Irish people in Spring 2007, amidst the static noise filled with the competing slogans and propaganda, I found myself in the presence of three pop culture texts that proved to me how artists and politicians should probably switch roles from time to time. We would surely learn something from each other. And these three works lead me to reflect today on words John spoke to so many of us about living from our best selves.

“[S]ilence is one of the great victims of modern culture. . . . One of the reasons so many people are suffering from stress is not that they are doing stressful things but that they allow so little time for silence.” (Anam Cara)

'Into Great Silence' is a genuinely unique film – a three hour long documentary record reflecting a year in the life of mostly silent Carthusian monks. The director first asked the monastery authorities for permission to film there in the mid-1980s; in a perfect example of why you should never expect a monk to arrive early for anything, they answered 17 years later that they felt that now the time was right. The film is a long, soft look at one thing only; and it takes its time, without commentary, complaint, or extraneous music. The rhythms of the cloistered life, the contemplative spirit of these men, and the supreme natural beauty of their surroundings are so vivid that an hour into the film I considered taking a vow of silence myself. (Note to my gentle critics: no such luck, I'm afraid.) At the same time, there's something about being shut away from the rest of the world in silence that makes me feel ambivalent – I can't help thinking that what these guys are doing is, as well as being amazing, a profound waste of time. What benefit does their life have for the rest of us? As soon as I ask that question, however, I am bound to reflect on how watching the film about them has changed me for the better. As John reminds us in Anam Cara, “Meister Eckhart said that there is nothing in the world that resembles God so much as silence.” The scenes alone of the monks sledging in fresh fallen snow reveal a far heightened ecstasy being taken in the ordinary than urbanites like me may ever feel. These men understand the reality of the presence of God infusing all of life.

After 'Into Great Silence' I re-visited one of the guilty pleasures of my childhood – the 1981 sci-fi thriller 'Looker', starring Albert Finney as a charismatic plastic surgeon who uncovers a plot to clone supermodels into robots who will hypnotise us through advertising. It's a pretty terrible film, but it does raise the spectre of a world so wedded to the consumerist ideal that it becomes a space in which, as the author Philip K. Dick wrote, 'we all sell the same McDonalds' hamburger back and forward to each other'. Our choices are prescribed by the myths we worship – about fashion, about property, about money in general. 'Looker' suggests that this will lead to the end of us, and regrettably suggests that there's not much we can do about it.

Finally, I got around to watching the last episode of the television drama 'Six Feet Under', a show about funeral directors and the meaning of death, which, of course, is just another way of talking about all of us and the meaning of life. I'd lived with the characters in this show for five seasons, and they were so well written and acted that I felt like I knew them. They were, at the very least, reflective of parts of me. Their spiritual struggles had helped to nurture my own pilgrimage, which is saying a lot for a TV show. Without giving too much away, the show ends with a vision of what is possible in one human life, and invites us to take our own lives far more seriously than we perhaps do.

'Into Great Silence', 'Looker', and 'Six Feet Under' all ask how to face the future with confidence – in silent contemplation, in avoidance, or in embracing the vast range of potential that is one human existence. John often said that when you enter into freedom, possibility comes to meet you. I wonder what that freedom would look like for me. Or for you. Or for all of us seeking to make sense of what it means to be human. When I think about the love of money at the root of 'Looker' – and perhaps the way we live now; and compare it with the delighted yelps of otherwise silent monks sliding down a snowy mountain, I wonder if we really understand what freedom looks like at all.

Rebroadcast of 2001 service

2008-08-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

The radio re-broadcast of a service John gave in 2001 is no longer available for listening. A transcript can be downloaded via the web by scrolling down and choosing 27 Jan. 2002 from the available menu.

John's Favorite Films - Second Essay Coming Soon

2008-08-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

Here is the film that is the subject of Gareth Higgins' second essay. We are letting you know ahead of time, so that (if you wish) you have a chance to view the film before we post the essay.

BBC Radio - Sunday, August 17, 2008

2008-08-11T16:24:00.001-07:00

BBC Radio will rebroadcast a service led by John in Glenstal Abbey (near Limerick)

Conversation with Mike Farrell and Dr. Dan Siegel

2008-08-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

To hear this conversation about John and his work, go to: Tazz and Paula's BlogTalk Radio. The interview is about an hour long.

John's Favorite Films - The Series Begins

2008-07-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987)

by Dr. Gareth Higgins

Eating in movies is often portrayed as a sacrament, and this is how it should be. The best of sacramental food films (along with 'Eat Drink Man Woman', and 'What's Cooking?', to name just two) is 'Babette's Feast', a Danish film about a religious sect that has lost the meaning of the words it has come to worship. They live on a cold, isolated island, where the weather never seems to stray beyond offering different shades of grey wetness. Their regular meetings are facilitated by two women, daughters of the now deceased pastor who was 'greatly respected and perhaps a little feared'. His followers meet to honour their founder, even though he has long since gone. Their worship songs sound like particularly sharp fingernails scratching slate, and include such hopeful phrases as 'Only when we have achieved sinless perfection will God dwell with us'.

Flashbacks reveal that the pastor would not let his daughters marry the men they loved because he needed them to help run the sect. These revelations provide horrifying examples of how well-meaning religious people sometimes damage others by manipulating them in the service of a deeply felt calling. Our horror should be a wake up call. However, the film makes it clear that the pastor was trying to love his children in the only way he knew how; perhaps we need to be more forgiving of our parents. People are sent to the island to be with the sect for penance – a bit like a more austere equivalent of being forced to watch television evangelism stations for a month without respite. Members of the sect greet each other with words like 'Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and delight shall kiss each other'. They seem to take pleasure in the words without ever experiencing their meaning. A soldier visits the island and tells the daughters of his experience at the Royal Palace – 'Piety was fashionable at court', he says, which made me think of the way some governments imitate the Pharisees, using the words of Christ without considering the substance.

And, into their midst comes an outsider – Babette, fled from France, with nothing but her memories and culinary skill. She has lost everything in the revolution, and is broken and alone. The daughters take her in – again revealing the warmth of community and self-giving that can only spring from a true appreciation of what it means to be human. She stays with them for a decade, helping around the house, providing the Dickensian gruel that they seem content to eat; and then one day a letter arrives. She has won the lottery – 10 000 francs – and the daughters are heartbroken because they assume this means she will leave them to return to her true home in France. When she asks if they would let her cook them a meal, they consent, and the whole sect is invited.

As the preparations for the meal develop, the sect members suspect the worst: the food seems colourful, exotic even. Dangerously worldly. The audience sees the most incredible edibles – strange pastries, awe-inspiring fruit, and, in a very politically incorrect move, a live turtle – and our mouths water. Meanwhile, the sect members develop a creeping sense of fear that the 'world, the flesh, and the devil' have intruded upon their lives. They have nightmares of the food sending them to hell and live in fear of anything different to what they know.

When the meal finally happens the sect has agreed to stiffen its resolve; to sit upright, to not have eye contact with the food, and, at all costs, NOT TO ENJOY A SINGLE BITE. But the soldier, now an old man, has been invited too, and he is in touch with himself enough to recognise something in the food – beauty, perhaps even the presence of something bigger than themselves. He also recognises the menu; he ate the same meal years before at the elite Café Paris, where such a banquet famously cost 10 000 francs.

Gradually, as the meal continues (and as the audience wills it), the sect members loosen up, they begin to talk about their happy memories of their late founder, and a miracle grows among them. Joy enters the room, and the people are suffused with a sense of the presence of God and community. They begin to apologise to each other for petty schisms, embracing like old lovers, and the night finishes with the diners dancing together in the village square, delighting in each other's presence, and perhaps even forgetting to thank the woman who gave this grace to them. Of course, in the morning it dawns on us that Babette has spent all her money on creating the feast that has healed them. She cannot go back, but will now devote what is left of her life to the community and its upkeep. But, as she wisely says, an artist is never poor. She, and we, have been reminded of what really matters.

This is a fable, and like all the best fables, especially the ones John told us, it tells the truth about what it means to be human.

But Babette's Feast is more than just the story of one woman's love for people who have been ungrateful. It is really about what Martin Luther meant when he said that to be a Christian was to 'Love God and sin boldly'. John knew deeply what this meant; as he was known to have ended blessings upon hearing confessions by instructing the person seeking penance and forgiveness and to 'go forth and sin BEAUTIFULLY'. In this context, he understood the word 'sin' to derive from the Greek word 'hamartia', an ancient archery term that means 'missing the mark'. We are made of clay, but are also beautiful works in progress; and there is enough religious inhumanity in the world without us needing to remain trapped in the systems that do not bring life. Many of us are like the sect members in 'Babette's Feast', who are so trapped in the past that when freedom is offered to them – literally – on a plate, one of their number initially responds by saying 'I'm fearful of my joy'. Their terror of the unknown, and guilt for the past has left them doomed to only repeat words that have been dead for generations.

Even the soldier is filled with regret – he abandoned his love for the army, where he rose through the ranks and had an 'honourable' career. But now, reminded of his love, he asks, 'Could many years of victory be seen as a defeat?' Babette introduces the one ingredient – I know some people might think it's turtle soup, but it's actually sacrificial love – that helps them raise their sightline above themselves. In the near-hallucinogenic haze of the food and wine, they discover hidden depths of grace and joy and life within themselves, things that had lain dormant for so long that they may not even remember when they last saw them (like Jesus, the film realises that every now and then, too much alcohol can be good for you – especially if your return transport is driven by a horse). And, in the moonlight after the meal, they dance, rediscovering not only their childlikeness, but their very humanity. And the reality of a relationship with God breathes in them again.

The story is evocative of what many people believe God has done for us; but we may feel something new when we watch the transformation that the film reveals. The joy of seeing grace experienced by people like us gives us a God's eye view. It leaves me wondering how God must enjoy it when we catch glimpses of the life God made for us…Or, as Meister Eckhart wrote (and John often quoted), 'The eye with which I see God is God's eye seeing me.'

The island itself reminds me of Iona, the Scottish isle where I once made a retreat. What I found there was that you cannot live in the city unless you make space for yourself in the desert, but only the few are called to live in the desert. Babette learns this truth, and puts it to good use, transforming a simple human plumbing need – to have fuel – into a kind of love affair. One of the characters speaks of her as one who 'can be understood only through the hidden regions of the heart'; and perhaps 'Babette's Feast' might cause you to reflect on your own need for a desert experience, or, on the other hand, the need to come out of the desert for a good feed. We have lost our sense of taste; and perhaps that's the same thing as losing our way.

If you find subtitles difficult, then I would encourage you to remember that some of the best things in life need to be worked at. Also, it's not a good movie if you're a vegetarian (which I share with you for about 22 hours a day); the poor turtle doesn't make it to the end, but he does provide a little blessing. I asked a clergyman once what he thought the solution was to the challenges facing the church in Northern Ireland, where legalistic stiffness has been the order of the day for centuries. He said 'The solution is the hard gospel. The hard gospel is not that you don't say the 'f-word', or that you don't sleep with your girlfriend before you're married. The hard gospel is that you love God and you love your neighbour as yourself. End of story.' I know that this may rankle with some. I know that personal morality is important. I know that we need to make choices that will imitate the pattern of Christ. And yet, I can't deny that what my clergy friend said was about as true as a statement can be in a post-modern world. 'Little children, love one another.' That's Babette's modus operandi. That's her gift to the dormant community. That's what John embodied for so many of his friends. That's the hard gospel, and that's all we need.

John's Favorite Films - Essays by Dr. Gareth Higgins

2008-07-27T10:53:00.000-07:00

At the last retreat John conducted (in Oregon 2007), the group engaged in a lively discussion about favorite films. In the course of the discussion, John gave an off-the-cuff list of his favorite films. We are thrilled to announce that one of John's dear friends, Dr. Gareth Higgins, has agreed to contribute to this site a series of short essays with his thoughts about John and each film on John's list.

Gareth is a writer and violence reduction activist from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a passionate lover of cinema. He is the author of 'How Movies Helped Save My Soul: Finding Spiritual Fingerprints in Culturally Significant Films'.

John and Gareth often found their conversations focused on film late into the night; the last time they spent a day together they were enriched by the experience of watching the Coen Brothers' deliriously funny and smart film version of Homer's Odyssey, 'O Brother Where Art Thou'. Gareth is delighted to be writing these essays for John's blog, in the hope that many other friends of John will watch these films and experience the depth and joy of spirituality in cinema.

Keep checking here regularly. The first essay is coming later this week.

If you would like to be notified whenever new content is posted to this blog or to John's web site - please send an email with the subject line, "Requesting Notification" to linda@johnodonohue.com, and we'll do our best to send you a note each time there's news.

You can find out more about Gareth and read more of his work at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com , or listen to the film podcast he co-hosts at www.thefilmtalk.com

PBS Special - to air again

2008-07-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

I wanted to pass on this email to you. It arrived this morning.

warmly,
Linda Alvarez
Business Manager
John O'Donohue
linda@johnodonohue.com

Dear Viewers:

Thank you for watching the Between the Lines special featuring Mike Farrell and John O’Donohue and going to www.klcs.org and becoming a member of KLCS-TV. The special was such a success that KLCS-TV will be running it again this Sunday, July 13 at 4:00 PM and again in August. If you haven't had the chance to see the program and support KLCS-TV please do and encourage your friends and family to tune into this important episode.

I also want to welcome back all my viewers in Michigan who can catch new episodes of Between the Lines every Sunday night at 11:30 PM on WCMU.

Have a great week, Barry