Saturday night and I watched the service from Clonard and all the importance and solomnity of the Easter message was here. Beautiful words and singing. I took this photo from my laptop just to show how lovely the altar area is. It’s at times like this I appreciate having the ability to go into places via the network.
I hope you are having a peaceful and joyful time today and will have good fun tomorrow.
LOCAL HERO
“Congratulations to Northern Ireland’s Rory McElroy who has just claimed his 5th Major to became the 6th player ever to achieve a career ‘grand slam’.” Billy Austin. This artist has the touch of a master.
I’m still reeling from the roller coaster ride that was Rory McIlroy’s golfing triumph last week. I listened on Radio 5 Live and it was brilliant, the commentators were excellent, they whispered at the right time and bellowed at others. I felt I was right there beside them. It began for me at 7.30 p.m. and ended with me under the duvet sobbing my heart out for joy at one in the morning. The lovely thing about this young man, to my mind anyway, is that he is sure of himself but knows he’s not perfect. Since a child he’s had a God given talent and no wonder be broke down after that last ball went into the hole and his childhood determination became a reality. His is a phenomenal story, school unable to contain him yet willing to support his golf career, his love life played out so publicly, his wife and daughter by his side, his love of his parents and, of course, his mega fortune. I may be wrong but I never thought money was his motivation and his generosity to charity means a lot to so many. I wonder if, as he has said, winning these trophies will help him relax and go on to further glories. It just might be the reverse, the crowds will be expecting a lot, a perfect game to enjoy every time but that in itself is a pressure. However, this is a man very much in control of himself and well able to cope. I have to admit, if you haven’t realised, I consider him a star and my sporting hero.
REALISING LIFE IS VERY DIFFICULT
Three important topics over the last two weeks, Africa, Myanmar and German occupied Poland. Plus one very irritating thought.
I attended an exhibition run by Concern Worldwide highlighting the situation in the African Congo – And So, I Fled The Crisis the World Ignored – and I learned is still ignoring. I spent some time in the Congo and saw the men, women and children live and sleep on the sharp volcanic rocks trying to exist in the heat and away from the war.
I met one old lady, over 100 years of age they said, who was carried on a huge banana leaf by her son, both fleeing the conflict. She was sitting in her tartan skirt, berry on her weary head, watchful and patient but for what? I never found out but hopefully there would have been some comfort from a charity like Concern. I’d come from the Sudan where the situation is the same, men taken away by the army, women left to bring their children north to Khartoum where they thought they’d find peace. It meant hitching a ride on a souk wagon, often giving birth at the side of the mud road, selling a child to get enough money to travel on. How terrible is that? Working in 25 countries including Gaza, Concern Worldwide is focusing on the latest disaster area, Miramar (Burma) where thousands have died as the result of the earthquake and probably thousands more lie under the rubble. When did you last have an update on the situation? The news spotlight has moved on to other things, however Concern and other charities keep up their support .
Working with partners on the spot the charity helps provide the basics for life and they have made a huge difference through supplying water, food, hygiene kits, temporary shelters and psychosocial therapy for those experiencing trauma.
Jackie Trainer NI director said, “Such is the generosity of people in Northern Ireland £300,000 was raised in the first four days of our appeal.”
Legacy of Hate
On the brink of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belsen a friend gave me a copy of the Helen Lewis book A Time To Speak. It took me one and a half days to read and it was difficult, not because of the writing but because of her experiences. She died at the age of 93 in January 2010 but it was a miracle that she lived so long. Many people already know what this charming woman went through during the Second World War, a young girl living a comfortable life with her parents in Trutnov, in the Republic of Czechoslovakia where German was spoken but as her religion was Jewish she was deported and experienced unspeakable cruelty.
Set against the horror of concentration camps, one early entry stands out. She writes that even before 1942, Jews had to hand over their homes to the German authorities, their radios, jewellery, silver, furs and anything of value. What else was there to take from them? The sad answer was their pets: “Their only joy left in a darkened world. To some, especially children and old people, this was the hardest blow. On the prescribed day there they were in the trams, white faced, choking back tears, clutch their pathetic little boxes, cartons and bundles which were handed in at the reception centres, Guinea pigs and hamsters, white mice, a tortoise and caged birds. Dogs and cats were the worst, they cried aloud all the day as if they knew.”
Before she was deported Helen had a career as a dancer and was due to choreograph the Bartered Bride. Here is the link. In the early 1970s I was washing nappies in the twin-tub, I had the wireless on; Radio Ulster was interviewing a gentle Jewish woman called Helen Lewis, I was immediately captivated. She was asked for a special piece of music which meant something to her and she chose the polka from Smetana’s Bartered Bride. I don’t know what came over me but I turned off the washing machine mid-cycle, put the two children into the car and drove to the Gramophone Shop opposite the City Hall. I told the man I needed a copy of the opera but he couldn’t find it. I pleaded with him to look again and he disappeared to the back of the shop and after about ten minutes came bounding back waving the LP calling out “I’ve got it”. That music is important to me especially since I realised what she went through at Auschwitz only to survive against all the odds and eventually to come to live in Belfast where she taught dance and established the Belfast Modern Dance Group, and she caught up with The Bartered Bride.
All this terrible history continues and today we face fear of the future, uncertainty, tragedy and human despair and what are we involved in here in Northern Ireland? A stupid dispute about signage at the new railway station. In the war years the white building that is Stormont was plastered in cow dung to protect it from German bombers. What have we learned since?
I’m glad that, as I always thought, I am now officially a woman. However, I was displeased to see my sisters laughing and whooping outside the court, hugging and kissing when the ruling was read. Have they no thought of how this is going to impinge on men and women who have felt it necessary to change their sex as best they can, to transfer from male to female and female to male. Have they no thought of what it means in everyday life for businesses and organisations, hospitals and schools and the rest. Calm own and think this thing through with compassion. Isn’t that what Easter is all about?
LENT IS OVER, 40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS WITHOUT HELLMANN’S REAL MAYONNAISE.
TODAY IS THE DAY TO ENJOY.