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Letters to Biddy

~ a weekly reflection as a letter to Biddy Early, 19th Century Irish healer from Ennis, County Clare

Letters to Biddy

Tag Archives: Gill Hicks

Cease

09 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

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Andrew Bovell, ANZAC, Biddy Early, Cease, David Steindl-Rast, Elissa Melamed, Gill Hicks, nationalism, oikumene, Omar Musa, peace, war

Dear Biddy,

At this time of the year I recall the explosion of the atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From 6 August 1945 as a human race we entered into a new stage of human development. Far from the kindness and warmth of a peat fire in County Clare the sounds and smells of charred bodies took the shape of a mushroom and we were never the same again. Not the exclamation mark to silence and define destruction’s tipping point, this cloud continues in the atmospherics around us. The great pilgrim and pacifist, Brother David Steindl-Rast writes in Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: “Since August 6, 1945, no one can deny that all of us belong together in this spaceship Earth.”

When you are in the same boat with your worst enemy, will you drill a hole into his side of the boat?’ Elissa Melamed

I rise this morning to join my breath and silence with others participating in Cease – an innocent, harmless action of doing nothing. (Cease comes from the French word to yield.)

I yield to peace and seek from the silence to yield, indeed harvest out of the stillness, more stillness to share. An antidote to the frenzied fear manifesting itself in the conflicts around our planet. While we have been free of a nuclear attack, the wars, acts of terrorism and hate ripping us apart embodied in the blood of those on the front lines  – their bodies deposited in the bank of inhumanity. Militarism is only a part of the story, poverty and fear are in the mix. Cease is one response. I am sure Biddy, you too had times when you did nothing to do something.

Cease

Studying the psychology of terrorism urges us to find the hope in the fear – and right now with our world on the brink once again, fear seems to have inoculated itself against hope. Paralysis sets in as the images of masked men marching in and out of towns as maps are marked in yellow and red and children fall to the ground in front of the people who love them the most.

Being still and sending all the love I can muster to others in the boat might be the best I can do. The pervading nationalism that unfolds with every step towards the centenary of ANZAC seem to be creating a pathway leading to shores where young lives are sacrificed by the old men in suits and combat fatigues.  A long bow does not have to be drawn to see where this can lead, surely we have been there, done that?

This week I heard Andrew Bovell, one of Australia’s greatest playwright’s and screenwriters launch a young man’s first book. The book: Here Come The Dogs. The man: Omar Musa. Using his book to hit his hand to claim the space of the artist to reflect back to the rest of us what is going on was like a clap of thunder. Thor had spoken. The thunder clap had been preceded by rain in Bovell’s speech, preparing the ground for and opening us all up for what was ahead. It was an exquisite essay.  Omar is generous and demanding, he is inviting us into his world of an Australia that is invisible to me. I know that the single clap was a call to cease fire too. A call to action to name and claim, shame and share what actions we all need to take to get closer to wholeness and further away from the disintegration and fallout of the mushroom cloud that separates us from one another.

The simple reality that we are all in the same boat is central to me.  First introduced to oikumene when working with church leaders in the 1980s it remains a touchstone for  me – this common household we inhabit called planet Earth. We are the housekeepers and right now we aren’t doing a great job.

Oikumene term derives from the Greek οἰκουμένη (oikouménē, the feminine present middle participle of the verbοἰκέω, oikéō, “to inhabit”), short for οἰκουμένη γῆ “inhabited world”.

Andrew Bovell and Omar Musa reminded me once again of the vitality of the artist to help us keep house. Cease is reminding me there are times to sit still, times to be mindful. This is the time to connect to our most sacred responsibility as housekeeper. Lest we forget: The clouds are reflected in still waters.

By a lake in Sweden

By a lake in Sweden

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Disturb and Disrupt

26 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by Moira Were AM in Uncategorized

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almond blossom festival, Biddy Early, disrupt, disturb, Gill Hicks, innovation, Willunga

Dear Biddy,

You had a bit of a reputation of disturbing the norms by some unconventional approaches to love and life and who you served and how they repaid you for the gifts you offered them. The fundamental exchange of services and goods for money was one of the greatest challenges you offered others, requesting non-monetary exchanges thereby offering an economy with relationships and whisky I suspect as currencies. The way these currencies converted in the market exchange of County Clare are hidden from the view of this correspondent, although I suspect the custodians of law on earth and in the heavens – the police and priests – found the evidence they went looking for when it suited them.

I have had a bit of a reputation of being disturbing over the years. I am someone willing to interrupt normal or familiar arrangements to bring some new piece of information to light or discover a hidden gem amongst a deluge of data. I quite like the times I can be forensic, and love it when the dots can be joined and a new piece of the puzzle makes a picture complete. So it is with our spiritual practices, being disturbed can help define and clarify what might have been hidden or clouded. I had one such experience this week when a little child led a small group of pilgrims around her house to bless each lintel and honour, name and claim the sacred space we gathered. This little person held the order of service to her heart, not yet able to speak the words, her silence when called for, spoke like a chorus of angels. She guided the hands of those who needed to be held, welcomed and farewelled us all with dignity and grace. She set the standard of inclusion of the stranger and the guest. There is a blessing I love to invoke and this was one of those times it came to mind: May the peace of Christ continue to disturb you. I was blessed and disturbed into being more peaceful.

Being disruptive is central to the journey, not content to kick over a few pebbles on the path disturbing them from their resting place on the road, to really disrupt is something else again; it is to re-route the road altogether. Disruptive actions break paths, they fracture and create whole new ways altogether. The successful entrepreneur and enterprise doesn’t just disturb, they disrupt. I can be very disruptive – especially when the inner child is dancing or the recalcitrant teenager is in full flight. Being disruptive is endowed with meaning these days and there is a lot I like about the reclamation and use of this word in the world of innovation. After all, isn’t all innovation disruptive?  The peacemaker disrupts by taking off her legs to show survival to girls who are lost and frightened that the light at the end of the tunnel is beyond metaphor.  The deacon dispenses holy oils from Jerusalem and a blessing that transcends time and space as bombs fall in Gaza and those gathered in a kitchen unknowingly contribute disturbing invisible energy to displace evil of the other side of the planet. Parents beg the media not to trade their pain for ratings.

There has been a lot this past week to disturb and disrupt fellow pilgrims.

Blessed are those who disturb and disrupt
For they shall midwife the future.

The almond blossom’s are impatient for the spring so come early to disturb and disrupt the winter.

The almond blossom’s are impatient for the spring so come early to disturb and disrupt the winter.

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