You are warmly invited to a very special event in Balally Parish over the weekend of Saturday 28 September and Sunday 29 September on the occasion of the second annual Dermot Lane Seminar in honour of theologian Dermot Lane who is PP Emeritus of Balally Parish.
This is a very special occasion marking Dermot’s 60 years as a priest and the parish has invited Archbishop Rowan Williams – Archbishop of Canterbury from 2012 to 20222 – to give a series of talks over the weekend under the theme ‘A Noisy World in Need of Meditation and Service‘. Rowan Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to address a Synod of Catholic Bishops in Rome, and he used that opportunity in October 2012 to promote the practice of contemplation. You can read his short but profound address here.
The event will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday morning with a short period of prayer and meditation. Archbishop Rowan Williams will give three talks over the course of the weekend – see the timetable below. Each talk will be followed by responses and group discussion. The session on Saturday morning will be followed by a light lunch at 1 pm for all who wish to avail of it – the cost of which will be covered by the donations.
The events are open to all. Feel free to attend one, two or all three talks. There is no need to book and there is no charge but you are invited to make a voluntary donation of €10 per event in a donation box at the back of the church.
This is a wonderful opportunity for meditators.
Timetable for the weekend: Archbishop Williams will give three talks over the two days as follows:
Saturday, 28 September 2024 10:30 a.m to 1:00 p.m. ‘Graced by the Holy Spirit of God.’
Saturday, 28 September 2024 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ‘The Journey Inwards: Contemplation‘
Sunday, 29 September 2024 3:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. ‘Working together for justice and the care of our common home‘
Solas Bhride in Kildare Town invites you to a day of meditation and reflection on Saturday, 07 September 2024 on the theme of Hope and Action with Creation.
Venue: Solas Bhride Centre, Tully Road, Kildare Town, Co. Kildare R51 Y281. To learn more and/or to book a place, click on the image to the left. Admission: €30 (Incl. of Tea/Coffee and light lunch)
“We are beginning to recover a sense that the simple act of gazing, of paying attention … can open up a space in the soul, a space in which the world may live and move in us. And that we are being called to renew our commitment to this work – for the sake of the world.” Douglas E. Christie.
Fr Donagh O’Shea will lead a morning of meditation and reflection on Saturday, 09 November 2024 from 10:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m. Donagh speak to the theme ‘Meditation: Falling Awake‘. There will be two sessions: the first from 10 a.m. to 11:15 a.m., followed by a 30 minute break for tea and coffee. The second session will begin at 11:45 a.m. and finish by 1 p.m. There is no need to book. Donations may be made on the day (€20 suggested).
There will be no lunch provided but those who wish to do so may bring a sandwich for lunch and tea/coffee will be available in the parish centre afterwards. Donagh’s latest book is entitled ‘A Holy Mess: – Making the Most of our Misfortunes.’
The Lost Words Blessing (Poem and Song)
Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river
Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter
May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter
May you enter now as otter without falter into water
Look to the sky with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you journey on past dying stars exploding
Like the gilded one in flight, leave your little gifts of light
And in the dead of night my darling,
find the gleaming eye of starling
Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter
Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you stumble through machair sands eroding
Let the fern unfurl your grieving, let the heron still your breathing
Let the selkie swim you deeper, oh my little silver-seeker
Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest, let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home.
In 2018, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris produced a book called The Lost Words Spells. The book was a response to how the Oxford English Dictionary had recently edited the ‘Oxford Junior Dictionary’. The junior edition of the Oxford Dictionary is aimed at readers ages seven and up and over the previous decade the editors had removed from that junior dictionary many words used to denote/describe things of nature – because these were words no longer frequently encountered by children!
Some of them were relatively common words such as: acorn, bluebell, ivy, fern, moss, blackberry, dandelion, lark, raven, heron, starling, hazel, heather, goldfinch, grey seal, otter and kingfisher. Hence their inclusion in the words of the song! The editing body of the OED had determined that the words were of little relevance and lessening use to the modern child. They felt young people were no longer familiar with hedgehogs and wrens (also excised) and frogs and buttercups (another casualty!), and so needn’t be introduced to such words that related to nature. They excused their actions on the grounds that they needed room for other, newer words with greater relevance to the modern child. Words like: attachment, blog, broadband, chatroom, database, and social media.
In 2015, authors Margaret Atwood, Helen Macdonald, and Robert Macfarlane, among other novelists and nature writers, expressed their dismay in an open letter to Oxford University Press. They wrote that ‘Childhood is undergoing profound change; some of this is negative; and the rapid decline in children’s connections to nature is a major problem’.
The poem was made into a song in Scottish Gaelic folkloric form by a group of European musicians – Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, Jim Molyneux, Kerry Andrew.
They offered it to the world both in hope and light, and in grief for losses yet to come. The poem speaks beautifully to the vital necessity of spending time observing nature; it captures how doing so moves our centre of consciousness from the wandering mind to the reality of the present moment: May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter. May you enter now as otter without falter into water. Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter.
Although addressed to children, in truth the poet calls each of us to become as little children and to rediscover our relationship with the natural environment, with the world which is our home and of which we are stewards. How can we care for the environment if we don’t pay attention to it. Even though the call is to move beyond words, to discover the spirit of the natural world, we need words to be able to describe – even at a very elementary level – what we see, what we are engaging with in the world outside of ourselves with which we are, nonetheless, intimately connected.
I think the same is true of our inner lives. In the Western world especially, in our secular societies, we are losing words that can reveal to us our true nature. As societies have become increasingly dissociated from formal religious practice, alienated from churches which failed to safeguard their flocks, we are in need of universal language and collective practices that can awaken us to who we are at the deepest level of our being. Silence is such a language and meditation is such a practice. This is why we meditate. Music: The Lost Words Blessing, Spell Songs, Folk by the Oak, (Quercus Records)
