Happy New Year, 2010.

The lordly old sun is giving notice that he has yet again pulled out of what was looking terribly like a terminal decline. Jack Frost is fleeing from his face again, for all that rascal has managed to keep millions of human beings scurrying around wasting fuel and energy fighting him, when all they really needed to do was have a little patience, take it easy and keep themselves warm till he cleared off…. What’s going on? Why is it so difficult for us to relax and await the Spring? Can’t we just rely on the perennial rhythms of life to carry us along?

At the turn of another year, particularly the so-called turn of a decade, it is allowed to hover for a moment over the void, perhaps even to give ourselves a brief opportunity to wonder what life’s about and where we are going. Then of course we are always convinced that our own particular crisis now is more radical and drastic than the others, and, well, one can even build a bit of a case for the claim that this crisis now is indeed a bit special.

Here we all were in Ireland, breathlessly riding the Celtic Tiger into a fairyland of untold riches and technological marvels, when all of a sudden the yoke skids around and we find ourselves heading backwards to the miseries we thought we had left behind. One day technology is going to solve all our problems, but the next it is apparently in danger of dumping us back into the Stone Age. We used to turn to the Church at times of crisis, and right on cue a big cloud of old misery tumbles along to obscure that possibility of light in a dark place. Not bad for a triple whammy!

Yet in itself it is hardly more drastic than, say, the struggle of the birds to survive the frost and snow. Our challenges may be more complex, yet it seems to me it would be well for us to adopt something of their approach. We cannot do much about the Economy, the effects of Technology, even the state of the Church. Yet focussing actively on the struggle to keep ourselves warm and fed and happy, using the gifts we are given as best we can, and singing in praise and joy when we have the chance, we may well find the rest sorts itself like frost in the Spring!

December 2009

November 2009

June 2009

May 2009
January 2009
November 2008
September 2008
August 2008
Midsummer report 2008
April 2008
February 2008
October 2007 - 1
October 2007 - 2
May 2007 report
April 2007
March 2007
January 2007
November 2006
October 2006

West Cork Sustainable Fisheries Group Launch

Tuna Trip 2007
On launching Wavedancing - 19 April 2006

IWDG Cabo Verde Expedition - 11th March 2006