DeValera meets James Wilson in Central Falls.

 There was an extraordinary meeting in Central Falls. 

The newly emerging leader of an Irish Republic, Eammon De Valera went to Central Falls to meet the aging and grieving Fenian  James Wilson. Wilson's grave is in Old Saint Mary's Cemetery in Pawtucket.

14 September 1919

The route to Melrose Park lined with thousands of spectators. De Valera was obliged to wait several minutes for the ovations to pass before addressing the crowd of 15,000 tricolour-waving supporters. During a short trip to Central Falls, just north of the city, he met James Wilson. The 90-year-old veteran Fenian was the last surviving member of the six prisoners who had escaped from Fremantle, Western Australia aboard the Catalpa whaling ship in 1876.

Photo added by Bill Keough

 

Added by Bill Keough

Added by Jen Snoots

I was fascinated by the fact of that meeting and I am right now in the midst of writing a play about that meeting.

Wish me well with the project. It is almost done ,

Maybe it will get a production some day.

Thinking of Sin City

 Recent events have brought Cincinnati and the 27 years I spent there  teaching  at the University of Cincinnati vividly back to mind.

Strange confluence of voices and memories. People from that past whom I never forgot.

 I left there in 2009 with every intention to return. 

I was called out of the classroom with the news that my Aunt Anna had collapsed in  her home in Pawtucket and was  found there after spending two days on the floor. 

 They did not expect her to live through the night. I left and flew back to RI immediately.

 But I never did return to the classroom. 

I did return to the city, but just to pack up my house and put it on the market. There was no going away party and no fond farewells. And yet I liked the place and felt liked there as well.

Why do I call it Sin City? 

 That name is ironic, as when the noted poet Agha Shahid Ali  from Kashmir visited and opened  his remarks  by commenting, "CINCINNATI-a city of just two  sins/cins  how I wish I could add a few more tonight."

 That was the brilliant ghazal master making a joke. After all Cincinnati is famous for being  a virtuous place.

. Another American poet, Michael Palmer, has cited Mr. Ali's links to poets ranging from the Urdu-language Faiz Ahmed Faiz to the Spaniard Federico García Lorca. Mr. Ali helped introduce American poets to a venerable Persian poetic form, the ghazal.

His visit influenced me  deeply and I renewed  again my efforts to write ghazals, a Persian form that I had encountered in the year that I spent living  in Amritsar at Guru Nanak Dev University.

THEY DID IT IN SIX!

Yes, the BUCKS are now the NBA champions and their star player Giannis scored 50 points in the game.

What a display of greatness. He has actually improved his free throws and  landed a  better percentage last night.

What does that mean about Chris Paul? 

 NOTHING!  

He is a great player, and it amazes me that when one great team defeats another great team, they are speculating on the morning Sports Shows about whether Chris Paul should retire.

Why does one team  winning mean that the star of the  defeated but also excellent team should leave the sport?

That is so irrational and so mean-spirited.

CP3 is still a great player.

 Enough from the meanies.  Let's just  enjoy the radiance of a new star-- a man  from Greece whose early days of poverty have been transformed by his own greatness and the  power of great basketball.

THE TWO SWEETEST WORDS IN SPORTS

 GAME SEVEN

There they are the words that mean that two teams have  forced each other to that last decisive  game in a Seven Game Series.

And that  is what happened  when the Bucks stood up to the Brooklyn Nets and even went into overtime to decide which of them would go onto the finals.

Now we are watching the duels in the Playoffs. I love the fact that if I can't stay up and watch  at night, I can see the game the next day in the afternoon. Very thoughtful of the Basketball Gods to  give us all a second chance.

Of course, the outcome does not change, but I  do not let myself  read the morning Sports pages in the news paper  (YES WE ARE OLD AND WE STILL GET A DAILY NEWSPAPER)

So, on with the playoffs. I am not going to tell you which  team I favor because that might jinx them.

YES THAT WAS ONE OF MY CHILDHOOD NICKNAMES  JINX INSTEAD OF JENCKES.

IRISH FREEDOM FIGHTER KEVIN LYNCH

 YOU ARE INVITED TO A ZOOM SESSION  ON THE TEN  HUNGER STRIKE  IRISH PATRIOTS

Time: Jun 25, 2021 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

 

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KEVIN LYNCH

ONE OF TEN MEN WHO DIED ON HUNGER STRIKE LED BY BOBBY SANDS IN 1981

When lauding the memory of INLA hunger striker Kevin Lynch – one of three republican socialist prisoners who died in 1981, we must not forget the complex history of the group he chose and the cause he died for. The simple facts of the life of Kevin Lynch can be told in a minute.

 Born on May 25th, 1956, Kevin Lynch was the youngest of a family of eight, in the tiny village of Park, eight miles outside Dungiven. His father, Paddy, and his mother, Bridie, whose maiden name is Cassidy, were both born in Park too, Paddy Lynch’s family established there for at least three generations, but they moved to Dungiven  after the births of their children.

Paddy Lynch, a builder by trade, like his father and grandfather before him – a trade which he handed down to his five sons: Michael, Patsy, Francis, Gerard, and Kevin himself, who was an apprenticed bricklayer. Three daughters in the family: Jean, Mary, and Bridie.

Kevin’s great passion was Gaelic games, playing Gaelic football from very early on, and then taking up hurling when he was at St. Patrick’s.  He excelled at both.

Playing right half-back for St. Patrick’s hurling club, which was representing County Derry, at the inaugural Feile na nGael held in Thurles, County Tipperary, in 1971, Kevin’s performance was considered a key factor in the team’s victory in the four-match competition played over two days.

The following season Kevin was appointed captain of both St. Patrick’s hurling team and the County Derry under-16 team which went on in that season to beat Armagh in the All Ireland under-16 final at Croke Park in Dublin. He was a champion hurler.

 He was also a boxer with the St. Canice’s club, once reaching the County Derry final as a schoolboy, but not always managing as easily as he achieved victory in his first fight! Just before that match was due to start , his opponent asked him how many previous fights he’d had. With suppressed humor, Kevin answered “thirty-three” so convincingly that his opponent, overcome with nervous horror, couldn’t be persuaded into the ring.

Kevin never lost his sense of humor and his athleticism.

  As a member of the INLA,  Lynch was tried, convicted and sentenced to ten years for stealing shotguns, taking part in a punishment shooting and conspiring to take arms from the security forces. He was sent to Long Kesh in December 1977. He became involved with the blanket protest, joined the 1981 hunger strike on 23 May 1981 and died 71 days later on August 1, 1981.

What is Soul Sovereignty or Soul LIberty?

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR SOUL?

 Recently President Biden has been criticized for attending Mass and receiving Communion despite his support of abortion rights. Some Catholic  priests in Rhode Island have echoed these warnings  about Biden's Catholic practice.  They have refused to see that such  negative judgements  are a violation of the idea of the separation of Church and State which is fundamental to American political and personal life.

 I would like to  remind Biden's critics of the concept of  SOUL SOVEREIGNTY

The basic concept of individual soul liberty, is that in matters of religion, each person has the liberty to choose what conscience or soul dictates is right and is responsible to no one but God for the decision that is made.

A person may then choose to be a Baptist, a Catholic, a member of another Christian denomination, an adherent to another world religion, or to choose no religious belief system, and the church, the government, family and friends may not make the decision or compel the person to choose otherwise. In addition, a person may change one's mind over time.

According to Francis Wayland, president of Brown University (1827–1855), Roger Williams established the commonwealth of Rhode Island on the fundamental principle of--

perfect freedom in religious concerns; or, as he so well designated it, "SOUL LIBERTY".

 "No man of his age had so clear conceptions of the rights of conscience as the founder of Rhode Island, and no one had ever carried them so honestly to their legitimate conclusions. I go further: no one has yet been able either to take from or add to the principles of religious liberty which he so simply and powerfully set forth. They stand as imperishable monuments to his fame, like the obelisks of Luxor, on which the chiseling of every figure is now just as sharply defined as when, three thousand years since, they were left by the hand of their designer"

If you believe in the Last Judgement, you  do not expect a priest or Bishop to be with you. Orthodox Christians  believe that they  may have their  Guardian Angel with them.

Medieval Christians  believed that only their good Deeds would accompany them after death.

None of us  knows for sure.

I cast my vote with soul sovereignty and the  hope and pray that the choices of my Soul have been  the right ones and will  standup to Divine Scrutiny.

THE GREENING OF THE WORLD AND OF OUR LIVES>

HOW ARE WE CONNECTED TO

 GOD?

We are connected in the same way that plants are connected to the sun. He makes our  existence possible. He gives us growth and change. He  helps us to reach our true fullness and maturity.

These are all  big and strong

 connections,  and they  continue 

whether we acknowledge them or not.

God's Love brought us into existence

             and sustains that existence.

Throughout the ages, mystics have kept alive the

 awareness of our union with God and

 thus with everything. 

What some now call creation

 spirituality or the holistic Gospel was

 voiced long ago by

 the Desert Fathers and Mothers in

 Africa, some Eastern Orthodox

 Fathers, ancient  Celts, 

many of the Rhineland mystics,

 and of course Francis of Assisi

 I am sorry to say that many women mystics were

 not even noticed. Julian of Norwich (c. 1343–c.

 1416) and Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) would

 be two major exceptions, though even they have

 often been overlooked.

Hildegard wrote in her famous

 book Scivias: “You understand so

 little of what is around

 you because you do not use what is

 within you.” 

 This is key to understanding

 Hildegard. 

Without using the word, Hildegard recognized that the human person is

 a microcosm with a natural affinity for or resonance with the macrocosm, which many

 of us would call God. We are each “whole” and yet part of a larger Whole

Our little world reflects the big world.

 Resonance is the key word here, 

and contemplation is the key practice. Contemplation is the end of all loneliness because

 it erases the separateness between the observer and the observed, allowing us

 to resonate with what is right in front of us.

Hildegard spoke often of viriditas,

 the greening of things from within,

 analogous to what we now call

 photosynthesis.

 She saw that there was a readiness in plants to receive the sun and to transform its light

 and warmth into energy and life.

 She recognized that there is an inherent connection between the Divine Presence and

 the physical world. 

THERE IS A CREATOR TO CREATED

 CONNECTION.

This Creator-to-created connection translates into inner energy that is the soul and seed

 of every thing, an inner voice calling us to “become who you are; become all that you

 are.” This is our life wish or “whole-making instinct.”

In her holistic understanding of the universe, the inner shows itself in the outer, and the

 outer reflects the inner. The individual reflects the cosmos, and the cosmos reflects the

 individual. 

Hildegard sings, “O Holy Spirit, . . .

you are the mighty way in which every

 thing that is

 in the heavens, on the earth, and

 under the earth, is penetrated with

 connectedness, is

 penetrated with relatedness.”  

I do not pretend to know what those

 words mean exactly.

They seem profound and maybe if I

 contemplate them long enough, they

 will reveal their reality to me.