BREAST PLATE OF SAINT PATRICK

 Why is a Prayer called a Breastplate?

This prayer acts as armor against all evil in the world. It strengthens the person who recites it for all encounters with temptation throughout the day.

St. Patrick's Breastplate is a popular prayer attributed to one of Ireland’s most beloved patron saints. According to tradition, St. Patrick wrote it in 433 A.D. for divine protection before successfully converting the Irish King Leoghaire and his subjects from paganism to Christianity. (The term breastplate refers to a piece of armor worn in battle.) In any case, this prayer certainly reflects the spirit with which St. Patrick brought the faith to Ireland! St. Patrick's Breastplate, also known as The Lorica of Saint Patrick was popular enough to inspire a hymn based on this text as well. 

This prayer has also been called The Cry of the DeeR, Why?

St. Patrick’s Breastplate prayer was written in a difficult time. A local chieftain had placed a price on his head. As legend has it, the chieftain’s troops were hot on Patrick’s tail, when he invoked this prayer of protection. All Patrick’s pursuers heard was the cry of a deer bounding across the trail.

Patrick’s prayer affirms an ever-present, dynamic God. God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. God is above us, below us, around us, within us. Wherever we are, God is with us. We are always centered in God, and God centers us. And, also wherever we go, God’s circle of love surrounds us. 

I arise today 
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles,
In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.

I arise today, through
God's strength to pilot me,
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.

I summon today
All these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel and merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul;
Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

[Note that people sometimes pray a shorter version of this prayer just with these 15 lines about Christ above. The conclusion follows below.]

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

When St. Paul referred to putting on the “Armor of God” in his letter to the Ephesians (6:11) to fight sin and evil inclinations, he could have been thinking of prayers just like this one!

 We may not wear combat gear in our daily lives, but St. Patrick's Breastplate can function as divine armor for protection against spiritual adversity every day of our lives.

What is Bloomsday?

 

Bloomsday is June 16th--today and it is the day that is described minute by minute in the  great novel written by James Joyce. 

Today BLOOMSDAY  is celebrated as a national and even international observance in Ireland and  in many other countries. In Dublin the events follow the order and map described in the book and many readings  are held at some of the places that Joyce memorialized  in his telling. Joyce left Ireland and never returned, but spent his artistic life recreating the  place and the manners of the people he had left behind.

Ironically, as Louis Menard  reminds us,

“Ulysses” was never banned in Ireland. People there who hated the book weren’t simply offended by the obscenity. They didn’t like what they saw of themselves in it. George Bernard Shaw called the novel’s language “blackguardly,” and said that his own hand could never have formed the words. But he conceded that the book was a masterpiece. He, too, had been a young man in Dublin, and he recognized the city he had known. “ ‘Ulysses’ is a document,” he told a friend, “the outcome of a passion for documentation that is as fundamental as the artistic passion. . . . If a man holds up a mirror to your nature and shows you that it needs washing—not whitewashing—it is no use breaking the mirror.” As Joyce said when he was told that his aunt Josephine had refused to read the book, “If ‘Ulysses’ isn’t fit to read, life isn’t fit to live.”

Henry James, in an essay called “The Art of Fiction,” in 1884, said that in England and America people see more than they think it’s proper to say, and they say more than they think it’s proper to read. More than any other English writer, Joyce destroyed that decorum. He paid a terrible price for it.

How should we celebrate this  milestone in human expression? Read some section of the novel, you could begin with the ending:

The ending of Ulysses.

No punctuation. Molly Bloom’s inner monologue as she lies in bed, waiting for Leopold to return to her. As you read it, the punctuation becomes clear.

Joyce had always been quite sure that he wanted to end the book in this manner, especially in regards to the last word. He said that after all the torment, after all the troubles of the day portrayed in the book, he wanted to end Ulysses on “the most positive word in the English language”.

the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

a slave is just a slave until he rises

 

These brief remarka may give you a taste of this man's eloquence.

Frederick Douglas 

Denouncing the Fugitive Slave Law

Here the renowned orator Frederic Douglas provides  a view of the Fugitive Slave Law.

While you continue in the Union, you are as bad as the slaveholder. If you have thus wronged the poor black man, by stripping him of his freedom, how are you going to give evidence of your repentance? Undo what you have done. Do you say that the slave ought not to be free?

 These hands are they not mine? This body is it not mine? 

Again, I am your brother, white as you are. I’m your blood kin. You don’t get rid of me so easily. I mean to hold on to you. 

And in this land of liberty, I’m a slave. 

The twenty six States that blaze forth on your flag, proclaim a compact to return me to bondage if I run away, and keep me in bondage if I submit.

 Wherever I go, under the aegis of your liberty, there I’m a slave. 

If I go to Lexington or Bunker Hill, there I’m a slave, chained in perpetual servitude.

 I may go to your deepest valley, to your highest mountain, I’m still a slave, and the bloodhound may chase me down.

The Martyrs of 1981

In 1981  Ten invincible Irish men used the weapon of HUNGER STRIKE and changed  the History of England and Ireland and became Martyrs in an old cause.

According to Alizeh Kohari of BBC News, Hunger strikes have been staged for political reasons throughout history.

One of the first recorded is in ancient Indian scriptures, which talk of the brother of the exiled King Rama using the threat of a fast to coax him into returning. He placed himself on a bundle of sacred grass at his feet and refused to budge.

On this occasion the "hunger strike" failed. But the concept persisted - indeed, in pre-Christian Ireland, it was part of the legal system. If a man felt wronged by you and starved himself to death on your doorstep, you had to bear the burden of his debts.

Unlike other protests, a hunger strike has no direct effect on the intended target. The protester suffers, not the person protested against. The protester relies on the moral force of their actions, or the publicity value, to achieve something.

The idea of hunger as political protest has experienced a renaissance in the recent past, says Prof Sharman Apt Russell, author of Hunger: An Unnatural History.

It was revived by the suffragettes in the UK at the beginning of the 20th Century. In July 1909, when a doctor asked jailed suffragette Marion Wallace-Dunlop what she would eat for dinner, she replied in defiance: "My determination." It has become an established cultural form of seeking justice in the 20th Century," says Prof Russell. She warns that a hunger strike needs the oxygen of publicity but interest will wane if the cause at stake does not withstand public scrutiny. Hunger strikes have been used by both violent and non-violent movements, and some have been more successful than others at bringing about change. Michael Biggs, a sociologist at the University

 of Oxford, says some of the most successful cases were Irish republicans fighting the British state. Thomas Ashe, killed during forcible feeding in Dublin in 1917, Terence MacSwiney, starved to death in London in 1920,

 and Bobby Sands, starved to death. in Long Kesh in 1981

"These did not immediately bring concessions from the state. But they had a huge impact on the Irish public, both by shifting people towards Irish republicanism and by inflaming the emotions of those already committed to the cause.

"They also undermined support for the British state's policy among a portion of the British public."

In an international publicity coup, Sands was elected as an MP while on hunger strike and his funeral in Belfast was attended by at least 70,000 people.

Biggs says the hunger strikes by suffragettes in Britain "similarly gained media attention and enhanced the commitment of supporters" but the vote came later and arguably owed more to women's service in World War I.

Gandhi was a supreme practitioner of non-violent protest, he says, and the use of his methods by millions of Indians was very effective in undermining British rule in India.

He says the current protest by Indian campaigner Anna Hazare, who went on hunger strike in April to demand stringent anti-corruption laws, is different because it is occurring outside prison.

"While many people outside prison have gone on fasts for a time, it is almost unknown for someone to actually starve to death outside prison.

"In prison, there's really no other means of protest. And in prison the government is clearly responsible for your life/death and so can be blamed if you die."

Former IRA hunger striker Tommy McKearney says prisoners are limited in what they can do.

"So many things in a prisoner's life are dictated by their captors. We had three years of protests and did everything we could think of to bring a resolution but we needed make or break action."

The 58-year-old, who was serving time for the murder of part-time UDR soldier Stanley Adams, was part of the first wave of hunger strikers in 1980. They wanted the then Conservative government to give them back political prisoner status.

He says there was no master plan, with a "hunger strike as the grandstand final flourish".

"We didn't set out with the objective of dying but we were prepared to die.

"People who do it have a deep commitment, it's not a game to be played with. Only the cause will get you through."

In the case of the 1981 Hunger Strike, the prison conditions could have operated as a safety valve. A sophisticated British government could have defused the situation quite easily and avoided a confrontation between itself as unyielding colonial power and a group of defenseless political prisoners, which is how it largely came to be seen internationally. The first hunger strike having ended, they would not have been acting under duress if they had allowed for some new arrangements on the specifics of prison conditions. But as the prisoners pressed for a second hunger strike they knew that this time not only would some of them have to die but also that they were engaging in a fight with the British government. It went beyond the issue of prison conditions; they were pitching themselves, with the only weapons at their command, against the imperial power. As they faced the prospect of death they felt that the spectacle of their deaths in prison was going to be politically productive for the republican cause to which they were committed.

Hunger strike is unlike any other form of struggle. An IRA volunteer does not go out to get killed, if he gets killed it is because he makes a mistake or some other circumstances arises. But a hunger striker embarks on a process, which from day one is designed to end in his death. However, when people contemplate their own deaths there can be no guarantee that they will go through with it to the end. It takes a very particular kind of person to go all the way, to resist the voices in his own head, the concern of friends and family, not to mention the pressures of the authorities. It is extremely difficult to know, until one is staring death right in the face, whether one is that particular kind of person.

For Sands and for those who would come later, the strike would not really be about the five demands, political status, or the legitimacy of the movement and the armed struggle; it was to pit the will of the just against the power of empire. For the republican to win the British would have only to take his life, would have only to refuse to act and thus show their shame. And he was sure that Britain would act to character, hold firm, and so lose a moral struggle. 

This was to the strikers a great moral struggle between Irish justice and British oppression that would be so recognized only when life was given and taken. The criminals would be revealed not by a declaration by Thatcher, not by the courts or judges, but by a trial of spirit within the H-block cells by men alone with their faith. Hughes and the others might not recognize the inevitable, but from the first Sands did.

The strikers were seen by many as Catholic martyrs as well as nationalist ones. The nation's history of denial and suffering because they were Catholic and Irish was recalled and refashioned. Irish nationals and Catholics perceived the strike as a traditional response to power displayed and deployed.

WHY PLAYWRIGHT ?

 WHY PLAYWRIGHT INSTEAD OF PLAYWRITE?

Many people think of playwrights as writers. As people who sit alone in a room cranking out plays to be performed onstage. It's easy to see why. But the reality is that playwrights usually need to be more hands-on than an essayist or novelist.

Other have pointed out that the word "playwright" calls to mind a trade like being a "shipwright"--someone who builds ships. Similarly, playwrights don't necessarily write a play so much as wright one--build it. It's not a purely intellectual process, but one that benefits from physical sensations and emotions.

In other words: from acting.

There's a reason why so many of our most celebrated playwrights were also actors. Because learning how to inhabit a character, and being responsible for bringing a written scene to life, teaches you a whole lot about how to write better scenes in the first place.

So with that in mind, here are some of the most important acting tips that are relevant to playwrights:

1) Know your "moment before."

Anytime a character enters a scene, they've just come from somewhere, and that previous moment determines how they feel (and act) at the beginning of the scene.

Has your character just run a marathon? Just had their first kiss? Just  lost their job?

Those previous moments will color the scene greatly, and it pays to know what each character's "moment before" is for every scene you write.

2) Know your character's goal.

Drama consists of conflict. And in order for there to be conflict, your characters have to want something. And they have to be actively trying to get that thing in the scene.

Without a goal, an actor doesn't know how to play a scene. They won't know what their subtext is (the meaning behind their words).

The most explosive scenes usually have two or more characters who both want opposing things--a wife wants to accept a job, her husband wants her to decline it; a child wants to go to the park, the babysitter wants to stay home; and so on.

3) Know your character's motivation.

Motivation is related to goal, but it's not the same thing.

The goal is WHAT your character wants.

Motivation is WHY they want it.

The easiest way to find your character's goal is to ask yourself:

"What will happen if they fail to achieve their goal?"

The answer to that question will give you your character's stakes.

If you notice that the stakes are too low, that could contribute to a less-than-dramatic scene. Try increasing the stakes to give your characters more motivation. Stronger motivation means they'll be willing to take more risks to achieve that goal, which will make for a more interesting scene.

High Court Justice Ajit Singh Bains

"God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied." Matthew 5:6

 A great judicial figure has died; having lived for more than a century. Ajit Singh Bains lived a full life serving the people. 

He served in the Army during the Second World War. The eldest son, Ajit Singh set high standards for his siblings especially in the areas of education. He completed his undergraduate studies at Jullundhur Khalsa College. He also taught there for a short time but was denied tenure because of his Communist sympathies. 

His father, Gurbakhsh Singh,(CPI) who had been tortured during years of imprisonment by the British as a political prisoner and was Sarpanch of Mahilpur, Punjab until his death. Ajit Singh was proud of his courageous father.

He decided to continue his education by attending Lucknow University to earn his law degree. As a lawyer Ajit Singh took up many controversial cases especially those concerning Human Rights. He became well known for his high principles and his refusal of any attempts to influence his judgements. 

In fact, when he made a decision against a case brought by Chief Minister Beant Singh, a man who was later found guilty of causing the death of 25,000 citizens, he was sentenced to Prison. Beant Singh was murdered by bombs carried by two men who were later declared National Martyrs. 

Throughout Ajit Singh's long and productive life of service to the Indian courts, he maintained close and affectionate family ties. 

 His unflagging emphasis on the importance of education is reflected in the distinguished careers of his younger siblings, especially his illustrious brothers: Yashdip Singh, Shakespearean scholar and  Hardial Singh, scientist and Communist leader.

 His sons and his grandchildren have continued with distinguished careers in the Law..

                May his people remember him. 

            HE HAS LEFT A PROUD LEGACY

The USE OF HUNGER STRIKES IN IRISH HISTORY

 Hunger Strikes and Self-Sacrifice

Hunger striking as means of obtaining social or economic redress or as a method of political confrontation has a plotted, yet discernible, history in Ireland. 

While the phenomenon is not peculiar to Irish politics, the country did witness one of the largest hunger strike protests of the 20^th century. 

In October 1923, more than 8000 political prisoners, opposed to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, went on hunger strike. Two prisoners died before the protest was called to an end.

Although it can be demonstrated that the phenomenon of hunger striking is widely used as a means of political protest, particularly so with the last twenty-five years, it is equally valid to suggest that the hunger strike is an integral part of Irish history and mythology. 

Thus for the Irish, especially the northern Catholic republicans, the hunger strike, linked as it is to religio-political martyrdom and the pantheon of Irish heroes, is another means, possibly a weapon of last resort, of those nurturing a sense of oppression and frustrated in their attempts to resist.

There is a long history of hunger strikes in Ireland

In fact using hunger strikes as a method of protests in Ireland can be traced to the island's pre-Christian era when there was a strong tradition of oral legal codes. These codes were known as the Brehon laws (derived from the Gaelic brithem meaning' judge').

For the people of ancient Ireland, self-help was the only means to enforce a claim or right a wrong within the context of the Brehon laws. A frequent method of redress was for the aggrieved party to shame the  oppressor by literally starving slowly and publicly at his gate.

In more modern times the hunger strikes were directed against both the British government (1913-22) and the Irish Free State authorities (1923).

 Many of these hunger strikes were protests against prison conditions and the treatment of the prisoners. Other protests were more politically organized and centered on demands for political status or were means of dissent against perceived unjust imprisonment. In general the protests lasted for a few days but many, particularly the politically motivated, lasted for much longer. Some went on for seventy-six days, and while many prisoners negotiated settlements with the authorities or were unconditionally released, others, more determined, were forcibly fed. Seven prisoners died as a result of hunger strikes during this period.

Against the setting of the now immortal and near-mythical 1916 Rising,  the hunger strike became a weapon of extraordinary potency in Ireland. It was to become linked to militant republicanism along with Arthur Griffith's Sinn Fein party, a movement opposed to the use of physical force prior to 1916, which was deliberately and wrongfully blamed by the British for what was officially called 'the Sinn Fein rebellion.'

In May 1916, sixty-five Irishmen, including de Valera, who had been convicted as rebels, were imprisoned in Dartmoor. For disobeying prison rules the Irish Prisoners were given extra punishment. De Valera went on hunger strike against this punishment, ending it when the punishment was withdrawn.

Despite his participation in the hunger strike, de Valera was uncertain of its propaganda value against the on-going drama provided by the First World War. In a letter to fellow prisoners, de Valera, writing from his Dartmoor cell early in 1917, said:

You may be tempted to hunger strike. As a body do not attempt it whilst the war lasts unless you were assured from the outside that the death of two or three of you would help the cause. As soldiers I know you would not shrink from the sacrifice, but remember how precious a human life is.

Before the year was through, and after the release of Irish rebels from British jails, the propaganda value of death by hunger strike became very clear to the Republican movement. This means of protest and confrontation had proved to be an efficient political weapon. Irish deaths by hunger strike transfigured not only the perceived sacrificial victims but, in the eyes of many ordinary people, the cause for which they died.

LET US  REMEMBER HOW PRECIOUS A HUMAN LIFE IS.