Happy St. Patrick's Day

Why Do I Do It? That peace stuff about Ireland? I can answer that question in four notes, sung to the words “Oh Danny Boy.” That short musical phrase, from an ancient air first set to paper in the 1700’s, goes right to my heart. And for anyone who’s heard the tune at a funeral, its profound effect is undeniable. And so this year’s St. Patrick’s season begins. You’ll see shamrocks, people in very loud, some would say downright obnoxious, shades of green, many of whom are likely to be highly intoxicated, and all manner of Celtic revelry and celebration. 2008 is a very special occasion for me and the Irish.

In the Spring of 1998 the Good Friday Peace Accord was signed by longtime political enemies, and then approved by voters across the island, North and South. The people demanded that their political leaders find a way for all to live in peace, and I was hooked. Peace is that one ideal to which all spiritual paths and practitioners aspire. In my ten years of watching the Irish people work toward a lasting settlement, slow step by slow arduous step, I’ve had many occasions to contemplate its meaning.

During a 1999 protest against the Good Friday Accord, a man in a wheelchair held up a sign with large red letters that read, “REAL VICTIM.” At the time I was reading the work of Caroline Myss, so his sign jumped from out of the TV screen into my consciousness. I would never judge this man, for I have not had to walk in his shoes for so much as one single day. From the news story I surmised that he had been injured permanently in one of the region’s many horrible bombings. But his words haunted me. I thought about Ms. Myss’ writings about the culture of “Woundology” and her assertion that after a certain point, our victimhood becomes unhealthy. I actually don’t know anyone who hasn’t had to deal with some wound or another. In some cases, the cause is explicitly political. For most the traumas are less obvious or dramatic, but no less painful to endure and challenging to reconcile. In her book “Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can,” Ms. Myss ultimately concludes that forgiveness is the solution. By forgiving, we are not condoning the behavior of the perpetrator. Rather we are making a clear and conscious choice to no longer allow that past experience to be our primary identification. It’s a “that was then, this is now” kind of clarity and philosophy. She also discusses at great length the dangers of bonding to one another in our pain, and the inevitable futility of doing so. Eventually someone will want to end the cycle of suffering and grow and heal, and this destabilizes relationships founded on mutual wounds. And so it was with the man on TV. The world around him had collectively decided that the time to move on had come. And there he was, railing against change, against peace.

Another moment in this ten year journey that stands out for me is that of the Omagh bombing. In late August of 1998, when the Peace Accord was new and fragile and Northern Ireland’s political future was still very uncertain, those who didn’t want peace tried to stop it in its tracks. In a crowded city center on a Sunday afternoon the bomb went off. With tragic irony this incident became the most deadly in the 30 years of the Troubles. Fortunately hate, violence and destruction have their limits. Instead of reigniting the terrible cycle of retaliation, that bombing inspired greater support for peace. It reminded the people, in grim and harrowing detail, of precisely what they so desperately longed to leave behind. In each moment we choose and those choices create our future.

Of all of the stories of the Troubles, the one that I think will always mean the most to me is of a man, now deceased, named Gordon Wilson. In November of 1987 the Troubles had been going on for twenty years, peace process after peace process had failed and the violence was relentless. At that year’s Remembrance (Veteran’s Day) parade in a small town called Enniskillen, the IRA targeted and bombed elderly, retired British soldiers who had gathered in the town center for the annual ceremony. Amongst the dead was a young nurse who had come to the event with her father, Mr. Wilson. A BBC reporter caught up with him later that evening and this is what he said.

"She held my hand tightly, and gripped me as hard as she could. She said, 'Daddy, I love you very much.' Those were her exact words to me, and those were the last words I ever heard her say. But I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life. She was a great wee lassie. She loved her profession. She was a pet. She's dead. She's in Heaven and we shall meet again.”

A Protestant, he would not allow his daughter’s death to be used to fuel Loyalist retribution. Her death and his tender and profound words began to change things.

So when “the pipes” come calling this year, if you see me with a tear in my eye, it won’t be for the sorrows of Ireland, or myself. It will be for the Love of people like the late Gordon Wilson. It will be for the Irish people, who just this past May formed a joint government where Protestant and Catholic serve together. It will be for those kids who now go to school together that I’m always going on about. And it will be for the dawning of St. Patrick’s Day in a new Northern Ireland.


Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you'll bend and tell me that you love me
I simply sleep in peace until you come to me.