Thinking

Heaney at his writing desk

Staring out the window

And John McGahern joked about

Staring out the window

My father too in his old age

Staring out the window

Now I sit in my old age

Staring out the window

 

But this is not an empty stare

It is a window to the soul

And all that staring benefits

The one who enters whole

Upon that realm of thinking

The hard work of the day

And turn our meditation

Into the power to pray

 

Remembrances of time gone by

The present moment too

The what will be that mystery

That summons me and you

The bias of the Nazarenes

Confronted with the man

They could not see beyond their town

They had to run him down

 

Brian Fahy

1 February 2023

 

+ My mother gave me a memorial card on the day I was ordained priest. It was a quote from Pascal ‘ ‘Thinking is the cause of man’s greatness’. We do a lot of talking and acting and reacting in daily life. We need people who think and who do the thinking, to help us ‘see’ and to help us understand what is happening all around us in our lives.