Real men in the real world are secular humanists
Religion just plays games to just feel safe
This is the modern ‘real world’ view
Religion has nothing to say to you
Well I’m sorry but you’re wrong
Completely wrong
We are dealing with the matter of being human
We all have things to see and things to say
The resolving of our problems needs all that we can bring
Our study and our thinking and our prayerful pondering
No one is excluded from our talk
We learn from one another
Just as we learn to walk
And everyone has something good to bring
To help us understand the tragic thing
That we are never far from war
From violence and fighting
That leave the painful scar
The demons that bedevil us today
We can’t communicate we’ve lost the way
We have no legal framework that we share
And shared values are lost in the thin air
We need to build relationships that last
With everyone not just some
As in the past
Logos means relationship
This is what we need
Beginning with our selves
That’s where we bleed
The West is not the world
We need to learn that
And no one will kow-tow to what we say
This war involves us now
We need to learn and how
The goodie/baddie mind-set will not do
We must purify ourselves before we meet
Admit our blindness
Walk a different street
This tragedy involves us all
It’s not a minor skirmish that will fall
Like Bartimaeus sitting by the road
Lord let me see again
Relieve our load
Brian Fahy
14 April 2022
+ I feel moved every day to try and understand better what is going on in this present war and struggle. Today I have come across a teacher and speaker who impresses me greatly. He is Nicolai N. Petro. He is a professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, USA. He uses the insights of religion and Greek Tragedy to help us understand and interpret the human struggle.
+ I also saw today an item about the village of Breaffy in County Mayo. In the old days there were just four public buildings there – the school, the post office, the pub and the church – or as a local lady put it – education, communication, damnation and salvation.
Perhaps we could say that the pub stands for socialisation these days, and say that these four elements are needed wherever human beings congregate – the need to learn, to communicate well, to live peaceably together and to seek God’s help in all we do.
Erris Poetry 