Tag Archive: John O’Donohue


Here is the place, now is the time

Filed under: Atheism, Books, Poetry — Leave a comment
December 1, 2019

Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue (Harper-Collins, 1998)

Screen shot 2019-12-01 at 10.25.48This is a self help book for the soul in which traditional Celtic wisdom from Ireland is couched in universal terms. It is full of  quotable anecdotes about living correctly and completely.

On the downside, affirmative thoughts are frequently undermined by woolly references to ‘spiritual’ values that imply all life’s gifts are God-given. O’Donohue argues that “At every moment and in every situation, God is the intimate, attentive, and encouraging friend”, ignoring the fact that there is not a shred of concrete evidence to support such a statement.

As a life-long Atheist I find the pseudo-religious aspects of the book frustrating primarily because it seems at odds with the admirable Humanist thrust of the key ideas. How can we be truly free as individuals if we are subservient to a divine being? Continue reading →

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TALKING ABOUT DEATH (AND LIFE)

Filed under: Atheism, Good causes, Health and fitness, Humour — 4 Comments
August 29, 2013
The Dance of Death from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957)

The Dance of Death from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957)

One of my favourite jokes about death is one I heard on the Dave Allen show. One man says to another “I’d like to know where I’m going to die”. “Why would you want to know a thing like that?” asks his friend. “So I’d know never to go there”, the man replies.

This has the same perverse Irish logic of someone asking for directions and being told “Well, I wouldn’t start from here if I were you!”

The harsh reality is that we are here and one day we won’t be.

The poet/priest John O’Donohue (another Irishman!) said that people are happy at funerals because they are not the one in the coffin  but this contentment has a limited duration. O’Donohue himself died suddenly in his sleep while on holiday in France aged just 52. The cause of death has never been officially released but it’s fair to assume that he didn’t see his end coming quite so soon.

We all calculate a life expectancy of at least 70 and, if we’re lucky, we might even sneak in two or three decades more. But most of the time the thought of  shuffling off this mortal coil is one that we put to the back of our minds. Continue reading →

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MAY I HAVE THE COURAGE TODAY

Filed under: Books, Music, Poetry — 1 Comment
August 15, 2013

I am grateful to Canadian singer and Wailin’ Jenny,  Ruth Moody who, in the title track to her marvellous new album These Wilder Things, uses the final line from a profoundly moving poem by the late Irish poet, author, priest, and Hegelian philosopher, John O’Donohue, which I’d never read.

Here is the poem in full:

A Morning Offering – by John O’Donohue (1956 – 2008)

I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees. Continue reading →

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