Mystery Man
Richard Rohr, in a “This I believe” segment on NPR, marvels that We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of ‘faith’! How strange that the very word ‘faith’ has come to mean its exact opposite.
The Call of the Wild
Maureen and I, along with several other couples, are going through Tom Stephen and Ginny Starkey’s devotional Fearless. On day four they ask these questions– Do you sense that God has a purpose for your life? Are you willing to humble yourself and ask God to reveal that purpose to you? Questions about purpose have…
Coming Unglued
I gave my Jeep a quick hose-down the other day and noticed that my California Adventure Pass was flapping in the breeze. For $30 you’d think the darn thing would at least have some decent glue. The pass is designed to hang from your rearview mirror. But for open-top vehicles (such as a Jeep) the…
Numb and Number
Something happened last week, a load shifted in my psyche. I don’t have the words, really, to describe the feeling. Something like a grim set of the teeth. Determination to face the coming cyclone even though there will be nothing left intact on the other side. Over the weekend I went to see Scorsese’s brutal…
Second Hand Life
We spent the Thanksgiving holiday in San Luis Obispo visiting our long-time friends Gene and Ros. We also house-sat for a woman in Los Osos, free lodging in exchange for looking after her pets. In the morning we would take the dog for a walk. It was a strange experience because neighbors and other people…
The Farmer in the Till
Driving through the Irish countryside we saw countless small farms, each with a small herd of cattle or a few flocks of sheep. I don’t know what a head of beef goes for on the Irish market–I’d guess maybe between 800 and 1600 euro. Seems like you’d have to sell at least a hundred head…
First Impression: Wolverine 40 GB FlashPac
You gotta love a gizmo that does only one thing, but does it exceptionally well. And if you find such a thing, let me know, because the Wolverine FlashPac has a few little quirks that leave me wondering if I can trust it completely. And that’s not how you want to feel about your equipment…
On Grafton Street in November
Leaving Dublin, heading for the airport, 5:00 AM, we found ourselves for just a second on Grafton Street in November. Young people in costume walked slowly, barefoot, weaving their unsteady ways to wherever home happens to be. Reality sinks in. Kavanagh’s Queen of Hearts is merciless. Without getting too sappy about it, I feel some…
A Quiet Street Where Old Ghosts Meet
Halloween in Dublin was a perfect night to go on a literary “pub crawl.” Our crawling party consisted of myself, Maureen’s brother Dan, his wife Christina and their children Cole and Ava. Cole was dressed as a Wraith, and Ava was in character as a lil’ devil. The city bustles with students who dress in…
On the Heels of the Dublin Marathon
Aside from visiting Williamstown and looking up the Family Tree, the other part of our mission was to cheer on Christy O’ as she ran the Dublin marathon. Christy was having some problems with a hip flexor and wasn’t planning to run a personal best, but she was determined to finish. Christy’s friend Tony O’Donnell…
Derrynasaggart, Ballyvourney and All that Blarney
Tom McCoy pilots the bus as if it was a cruise ship–smooth, steady, certain. And when we weren’t listening to Martin’s power ballads on the CD, Tom was happy to toss out bits of knowledge. For instance, the Derrynasaggart mountains are going through a wide scale reforestation program with lots of Sitka spruce and Canadian…
Congregating at St. Danny Mann’s
Somehow we’ve managed to avoid darkening the door of a church thus far. But we haven’t avoided Jesus, because there on the red flocked wallpaper in Danny Mann’s is a framed picture of the Sacred Heart. Danny Mann’s is a pub in the traditional style, with dark wood beams and wallpaper that looks to be…
Killarney: Another Feckin’ Wild Goose Chase
We we hit Killarney a battalion quickly formed to go shopping. I decided this would be a good chance to snag another geocache. Armed with my trusty GPS it didn’t take long to pinpoint the coordinates on the western bank of the River Deenagh. The clue was that the cache would be in a hollow…
The Rocky Road to Dublin
It is a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him… Edmund Ludlow This morning Tom McCoy took us along the Western coast of County Clare. We stopped outside of Kinvarra for a Kodak moment with a pastoral scene on one…
The Importance of Being Sheen
Back to the Raddison for dinner. Someone in our party spotted Martin Sheen at our hotel, rumor is that he lives in Galway part of the year and goes to university. The lobby was full of Australian football players, in town for the anual Irish/Aussie grudge match of International Rules football. The Aussies stayed up…