The Life of (Liam) Reilly: January 2011

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships, so that you will live deep in your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation, of people and the earth. so that you will work for justice, equity and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer so you will reach out your hands to comfort them and seek to change their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world, so you will do the things which others say cannot be done.
Amen.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The New Church progresses, it already has the roof on and the floor laid. Next step, the ceramics and electrics. But thankfully all is going according to plan.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Two months before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke to his congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta about his death in what would oddly enough become his eulogy.

"Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral," Dr. King told his congregation. "If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, that isn't important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that's not important. I'd like someone to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like someone to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try, in my life, to clothe those who were naked. I want you to be able to say that I did try to visit those in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity." Dr. King concluded with these words: "I won't have any money left behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind."

Just a thought...

Monday, January 3, 2011

Happy New Year everyone. I pray that it is filled with much peace and love.

On New Year's morning I took this photo from my window. It is not a rare sight unfortunately but on a day when our thoughts often turn to New Years resolutions and "better things in the year ahead", I wondered what was going through this man's mind as he searched the rubbish of the old year for something he could sell to feed his family.

Whatever this New Year brings, may it unite us more and more in our care and concern for each other.

New Church beside old Cane Church. We are about to roof it. So all goes well for an inauguration in late February of early March, perhaps St. Patrick's Day. Would be nice.

A typical home of the indigenous communities

This is the home of Carmen Saeteros. She has just turned ninty (she thinks). Very often they have difficulty remembering their date of birth. Her very simple house is typical of the indigenous community and made from clay and stray blocks (bloques de adobe) with the luxurious models having tin roofs, (many with stray). These homes are bitterly cold for a man from Belmullet used to the bit hearth full of good black turf. But these are a tougher people. Carmen sleeps on the floor on a large bag filled with animal coat. Inside it is just one room with a table at one end and her bag (bed) at the other. She survives on milk and eggs (dairy products in large quantities being bad and all that jazz, she must have missed that health supplement) With no shoes and no socks, the earthen floor can be well... Recently we have decided to "renovate" her local run-down chapel at a cost or between $2000-2500. She said it was the best New Year present she could have received. She (as the elder stateswoman), and the rest of the community of Rumiurco are very proud of their Christian Catholic faith. Say one for her, she is quite ill at this moment.

Our New Church at Cimientos

Ciemientos is a community in the wilds of the mountains of Ecuador, untouched until recently by the "outside" world. It is a community constituted entirely of indigenous peoples. They speak Kichwa and are intensely uncomfortable speaking in Spanish (as am I, so at least we have that in common). Thanks to the support of the people of my native Erris, Co Mayo, this chapel is nearing completion. Unfortunately because of the incredible effects of the "La Nina" and associated weather patterns, the inauguration will take place in the summer, probably September. But it is a beautiful chapel, built on the foundation of an old Inca structure. (Ciemientos means foundation) They do not rue the loss of the Inca relic because they are decendents of the Canari people who were subjugated by the Inca Empire in the thirteenth century. One back as it were, if not a little too late.