Communication is like tossing a ball back and forth: energizing and relating
In effective communication energy flows
Need of the other, cooperation
People are different – relationship serves a s a bridge
Agreement does not have to be reached, but connection needs to be established
Lecture, making pronouncements (talking to child) vs interpersonal communication
Communication vs isolation
According to Jung isolation leads to evil, can only be prevented through strong sense of good or relationships to others (emotional isolation
Adequate toss is not too far or not directed on head
“Always” of blame vs speaking about own feelings
People we want to reach have ot be taken into account – importance of listening
Agenda – needs to be worked through, might not entirely because one side is blocking or does not know his own agenda
Interruption: do not like what we hear or have own agnda vs patience and maturity
Creative listening is aimed at understanding, not lecturing or judging, listening creates readiness in other to listen
Talking responsibly: appropriate time and place
Actions communicating indirectly are mostly destructive
Uncontrolled emotions are like giants, dangerous and destructive and overwhelming
Response in other: rage creates rage, unable to hear
Train the giants to be servants, heroic acts, great achievements in creativity...regulate and control our emotions so they are positive and useful
Suppressing emotions does not work and will silence all emotions
Defuse anger through “I understand” approach
Handling anger, being aware of its presence and working on and with it, expressing it without being consumed by it
Consider who is advising out of what personal situation, writing letter/note
Animus – anima
Masculine tendencies in women – feminine tendencies in men
Animus: blunt, inflexible, judgmental, aggressive
Anima: moody, sulky, peevish, overly sensitive
Keeping anima and animus qualities like these ones within and let not come them between people
Poison and emotionality vs power and criticism
Archetypes a twar
Man or woman barely present, results in crushed egos
Anima/animus in response to hurt, solution: work and acknowledge own feelings and communicate them properly
Proteus: changing shape, changing conversations. Reasons: the subject is painful to them, or they want to say something but not take ownership and responsibility for it
Shifting ground: blame replaced by blame
Bird in the bushes: hidden criticism
You shouldn’t feel like that – dismiss feelings as unimportant, cultural thing. However feelings are facts of relationships
Training the ego to stand outside the situation despite its involvement to detect these strategies
Guilt
Guilt provokes feelings of low self-image
Real guilt vs false guilt
Accusing voice Inner Critic = poses as conscience, puts one down, should/woulds – true Conscience = true nature, God’s voice/guidance
False guilt diminishes our personality, real guilt does not
Neurotic guilt as an ally to avoid facing the fact that our own unhappiness is our problem caused by us and only changeable by us
Indirect communication
Body language
Slip of tongue
The urge to make secrets public
Choosing indirect way to make a statement: apology, love declaration – fear of rejection
Acting out
People are different
Thinking type vs feeling type + sensation vs intuition
Extroversion vs introversion two extremes of a spectrum, people are sprinkeled between these two extremes = psychological orientation on which the other combinations are added
By accepting other peoples’ standpoints we broaden our personality
Letting the other be himself is love
Thursday, February 2, 2017
PHILOLOGY
“…what are we going to say if he asks next, isn’t piety the sort of thing that is just, and isn’t justice the sort of thing that is pious? Or is it the sort of thing which is not pious? Is piety the sort of thing to be not just, and therefore unjust, and justice impious? What are we going to say to him? Personally, I would answer both that justice is pious and piety is just, and I would give the same answer on your behalf…,that justice is the same thing as piety, or very similar, and most emphatically, that justice is the same kind of thing as piety, and piety as justice.” (Protagoras, 331b)
In this part of the dialogue Protagoras and Socrates argue about the nature of the relations between different virtues. While Socrates insists that all values are part of the same coin, and only differ in their prospective size, Protagoras holds the view that they are parts of a face, implying that one could live without eyesight or the ability to hear, resulting in the conclusion that one virtue can exist in an individual’s personality without the other being present. Socrates, who explains in the quote that justice and piety cannot exist without each other, believes that all virtues have to be present in order to produce each others’ forms and characteristics.
I believe that in order to excel in one of the virtues, a person has to be generally virtuous and posses also the qualities of the other virtuous. If we look at the cardinal virtues like justice, temperance, piety, courage and wisdom, we can easily conclude that there is no true justice possible without the other four and vice versa. If a judge does not have knowledge and wisdom to reach the necessary insight into a case, the temperance to control his emotions, while giving a sentence for a damnable crime, the courage to condemn the powerful of a nation just as the powerless, and does not fear that a superior power will ultimately hold him responsible for his decisions, then there is no justice in his decisions. If a man fights in a battle that is not promoting the good, like for example a just cause, and if his actions are not accompanied by temperance, wisdom and piety, his courage will be the courage of a person who ultimately fights for destruction, his own and his society’s, as unjust actions void of goodness ultimately lead to destruction.
One could argue that oftentimes someone seems to display enormous piety by following the rites and even outdoes others of the same faith; or someone is known for his smart solutions and knowledge in a particular field, like a scientist who can develop new solutions for problems.
However, these examples are not covering the complexity of the topic. The person who diligently follows the requirements of his worship, but fails to apply justice and fairness to his decisions, is just formally following his religious duties, but fails to apply the concept of religion, which is to improve the life of himself and others by living a righteous life. A scientist, who agrees to develop a destructive device, like a nuclear bomb or a way of biological warfare, might display knowledge in his field of expertise, but does not show wisdom or justice, as he does not reflect on the potential outcome of his invention (that could one day even be directed at himself), neither does he consider, if his doings are just towards other human beings. In both cases the protagonists are therefore lacking in virtue and the virtue that is apparently displayed by them is not a virtue, but a form of behavior void of true virtue that only serves to cover up his true nature or to help him attain honors and wealth in this life. Therefore it becomes clear that one virtue cannot exist in a person in isolation and that a person, who excels in a particular virtue must have at least traces of other virtues as well to make the displayed virtue a true one.
In this part of the dialogue Protagoras and Socrates argue about the nature of the relations between different virtues. While Socrates insists that all values are part of the same coin, and only differ in their prospective size, Protagoras holds the view that they are parts of a face, implying that one could live without eyesight or the ability to hear, resulting in the conclusion that one virtue can exist in an individual’s personality without the other being present. Socrates, who explains in the quote that justice and piety cannot exist without each other, believes that all virtues have to be present in order to produce each others’ forms and characteristics.
I believe that in order to excel in one of the virtues, a person has to be generally virtuous and posses also the qualities of the other virtuous. If we look at the cardinal virtues like justice, temperance, piety, courage and wisdom, we can easily conclude that there is no true justice possible without the other four and vice versa. If a judge does not have knowledge and wisdom to reach the necessary insight into a case, the temperance to control his emotions, while giving a sentence for a damnable crime, the courage to condemn the powerful of a nation just as the powerless, and does not fear that a superior power will ultimately hold him responsible for his decisions, then there is no justice in his decisions. If a man fights in a battle that is not promoting the good, like for example a just cause, and if his actions are not accompanied by temperance, wisdom and piety, his courage will be the courage of a person who ultimately fights for destruction, his own and his society’s, as unjust actions void of goodness ultimately lead to destruction.
One could argue that oftentimes someone seems to display enormous piety by following the rites and even outdoes others of the same faith; or someone is known for his smart solutions and knowledge in a particular field, like a scientist who can develop new solutions for problems.
However, these examples are not covering the complexity of the topic. The person who diligently follows the requirements of his worship, but fails to apply justice and fairness to his decisions, is just formally following his religious duties, but fails to apply the concept of religion, which is to improve the life of himself and others by living a righteous life. A scientist, who agrees to develop a destructive device, like a nuclear bomb or a way of biological warfare, might display knowledge in his field of expertise, but does not show wisdom or justice, as he does not reflect on the potential outcome of his invention (that could one day even be directed at himself), neither does he consider, if his doings are just towards other human beings. In both cases the protagonists are therefore lacking in virtue and the virtue that is apparently displayed by them is not a virtue, but a form of behavior void of true virtue that only serves to cover up his true nature or to help him attain honors and wealth in this life. Therefore it becomes clear that one virtue cannot exist in a person in isolation and that a person, who excels in a particular virtue must have at least traces of other virtues as well to make the displayed virtue a true one.
Leave or stay !!
It was that feeling of “déjà vu”, when I first stepped into East Nashville. Somehow it felt like I had been living here for a long time and I immediately felt familiar with the area. Most of the people in Nashville generally think that it is a rather run down and dangerous area with a lot of problems and troubles. But being from Cairo, Egypt and well acquainted with the history of my own country, I tend to appreciate the value of old historical places. Others also noticed, well before me, the Victorian look of most of the homes, and consequently thought of the kind of equity that one could create by restoring such properties, once the area would revive its old charm.
However, I am referring here to another “wealth” of this historic neighborhood. I want to talk about its special community that encouraged me more than once to start and maintain a business there. Being from a big city, it was hard at first to settle in a place like Nashville, where life is very different from the anonymity and speed of big urban places. People here know you by your name, they know quite a little bit about you and there is always a reason for a conversation. In East Nashville, we do have our own E-mail list serve that connects more than 15,000 people and they could just be talking about anything, at any time: from searching for a good plumber to reporting thieves or lost pets or even giving a business review. East Nashville has been a hub for all musicians and song writers for many years as Nashville’s affiliation with the music business is bringing a never ending stream of people and musicians from all over the world to start a music carrier or to find a business related opportunity; and by doing so, most hit East Nashville because it is famous for being the “artistic neighborhood”. They bring with them their own culture and ideas, enriching the community even more. This ongoing flow of newcomers and the diversity they bring to the area, make the East Side a particular place within Nashville.
Embedded in this local network is my pizza shop, a restaurant offering Italian and Mediterranean specialties. Being from a background of engineering, I added this business about ten years ago to my professional experiences. It has never been easy and was always very time-consuming, but it was also very fulfilling seeing it grow from the small shop where we once started to the building and restaurant that it is now. We weathered the time and quite a few crises – like the one I am going to tell you about here. I received the terrifying call in the early Saturday afternoon, my longstanding employee’s voice was shaky, gasping for air: “The shop is on fire!” Then after gathering himself together he continued to explain that while he was opening the back door, he heard an explosion and saw the flames moving towards him. However, he was trying to pull the fire extinguisher from the wall, but soon realized that only fire fighters would have the necessary equipment to master this fire. It was simply too large to be contained with the simple equipment at his disposition. So he made the call and fortunately the fire station one block away send their fire trucks the same moment. By the time, I arrived at the location, the fire was extinguished. But it had not been a small fire by any means, at least not in its consequences. Looking at the damage, I soon realized that it was substantial and would close us for quite some time, if not weeks. For someone in my position that means a significant loss of income while I still have to carry the usual costs that come with a business. It means the loss of my entire food inventory and it also means considerable expenses to repair and restore the damage. Would I be able and prepared enough to overcome this critical situation or would it cost me my business, the main source of my family’s income?
I was considering the damage: floor and ceiling were completely destructed and needed to be restored, chairs and tables had to be replaced, a complete bathroom was gone, melted in the flames, repainting the walls seemed to be the smallest of my problems…Little by little my staff arrived, one after the other in shock about what had happened. I could realize the fear in their eyes; they needed their job and their money. The average restaurant worker is not prepared for these kinds of emergencies, savings are scarce and no tip at the end of the night or pay at the end of the week can have a huge impact on these people’s lives. Realizing that somehow we were all in the same boat I knew I had to come up with something. Giving up was just not an option.
“As you can see for yourself, we are burnt down, but this is not the end!” I heard myself say. “The one who stays with me has a job. The one who wants to leave, come and get your money - but do not come back later! We are going to clean this mess and we will be open in a week and running!” I added. “In a week” meant a nearly impossible job and they knew it was going to be backbreaking and even with enormous efforts it would remain unlikely. However, nobody left that day or any of the following days. We started cleaning, scrubbing ceilings, repairing and replacing anything from light fixtures to toilet flushers, scraping off old flooring and fixing walls. It was a huge effort, but once we started the work, optimism set in and we were able to see the new potential that came with the destruction – the complete makeover of the restaurant. The new color combinations we chose made the place look much fancier and inviting. As a result, the outlook of a “new” restaurant was so inspiring and motivating that after a week of unmatched endeavors, we indeed succeeded to open up for business, just in time to serve our customers for the week end. And a week end it was! During the week, I had come across some postings of people missing us and wondering when the restaurant would open for business again and if it would open again – an option that some competitors were probably hoping for aloud. However, I had not anticipated the rush that happened to us once our doors opened that Saturday evening. It was an outpour of support and patronage. All our regulars customers were there that night and many of those who I had not seen in a while returned to assure me that they are still my customers. News was exchanged and questions of concern and sympathy needed to be addressed. Many feared that we would not make it any time soon or at all. They heard about the fire for the first time as I had tried to keep the cause of the closure to myself.
As the evening passed, I felt exhausted from the efforts of the last days, but also happy and grateful that things had worked out once again for us and that we are continuing to be part of the East Nashvillian neighborhood and its outstanding community.
However, I am referring here to another “wealth” of this historic neighborhood. I want to talk about its special community that encouraged me more than once to start and maintain a business there. Being from a big city, it was hard at first to settle in a place like Nashville, where life is very different from the anonymity and speed of big urban places. People here know you by your name, they know quite a little bit about you and there is always a reason for a conversation. In East Nashville, we do have our own E-mail list serve that connects more than 15,000 people and they could just be talking about anything, at any time: from searching for a good plumber to reporting thieves or lost pets or even giving a business review. East Nashville has been a hub for all musicians and song writers for many years as Nashville’s affiliation with the music business is bringing a never ending stream of people and musicians from all over the world to start a music carrier or to find a business related opportunity; and by doing so, most hit East Nashville because it is famous for being the “artistic neighborhood”. They bring with them their own culture and ideas, enriching the community even more. This ongoing flow of newcomers and the diversity they bring to the area, make the East Side a particular place within Nashville.
Embedded in this local network is my pizza shop, a restaurant offering Italian and Mediterranean specialties. Being from a background of engineering, I added this business about ten years ago to my professional experiences. It has never been easy and was always very time-consuming, but it was also very fulfilling seeing it grow from the small shop where we once started to the building and restaurant that it is now. We weathered the time and quite a few crises – like the one I am going to tell you about here. I received the terrifying call in the early Saturday afternoon, my longstanding employee’s voice was shaky, gasping for air: “The shop is on fire!” Then after gathering himself together he continued to explain that while he was opening the back door, he heard an explosion and saw the flames moving towards him. However, he was trying to pull the fire extinguisher from the wall, but soon realized that only fire fighters would have the necessary equipment to master this fire. It was simply too large to be contained with the simple equipment at his disposition. So he made the call and fortunately the fire station one block away send their fire trucks the same moment. By the time, I arrived at the location, the fire was extinguished. But it had not been a small fire by any means, at least not in its consequences. Looking at the damage, I soon realized that it was substantial and would close us for quite some time, if not weeks. For someone in my position that means a significant loss of income while I still have to carry the usual costs that come with a business. It means the loss of my entire food inventory and it also means considerable expenses to repair and restore the damage. Would I be able and prepared enough to overcome this critical situation or would it cost me my business, the main source of my family’s income?
I was considering the damage: floor and ceiling were completely destructed and needed to be restored, chairs and tables had to be replaced, a complete bathroom was gone, melted in the flames, repainting the walls seemed to be the smallest of my problems…Little by little my staff arrived, one after the other in shock about what had happened. I could realize the fear in their eyes; they needed their job and their money. The average restaurant worker is not prepared for these kinds of emergencies, savings are scarce and no tip at the end of the night or pay at the end of the week can have a huge impact on these people’s lives. Realizing that somehow we were all in the same boat I knew I had to come up with something. Giving up was just not an option.
“As you can see for yourself, we are burnt down, but this is not the end!” I heard myself say. “The one who stays with me has a job. The one who wants to leave, come and get your money - but do not come back later! We are going to clean this mess and we will be open in a week and running!” I added. “In a week” meant a nearly impossible job and they knew it was going to be backbreaking and even with enormous efforts it would remain unlikely. However, nobody left that day or any of the following days. We started cleaning, scrubbing ceilings, repairing and replacing anything from light fixtures to toilet flushers, scraping off old flooring and fixing walls. It was a huge effort, but once we started the work, optimism set in and we were able to see the new potential that came with the destruction – the complete makeover of the restaurant. The new color combinations we chose made the place look much fancier and inviting. As a result, the outlook of a “new” restaurant was so inspiring and motivating that after a week of unmatched endeavors, we indeed succeeded to open up for business, just in time to serve our customers for the week end. And a week end it was! During the week, I had come across some postings of people missing us and wondering when the restaurant would open for business again and if it would open again – an option that some competitors were probably hoping for aloud. However, I had not anticipated the rush that happened to us once our doors opened that Saturday evening. It was an outpour of support and patronage. All our regulars customers were there that night and many of those who I had not seen in a while returned to assure me that they are still my customers. News was exchanged and questions of concern and sympathy needed to be addressed. Many feared that we would not make it any time soon or at all. They heard about the fire for the first time as I had tried to keep the cause of the closure to myself.
As the evening passed, I felt exhausted from the efforts of the last days, but also happy and grateful that things had worked out once again for us and that we are continuing to be part of the East Nashvillian neighborhood and its outstanding community.
8 Hours without Mass Media
8 Hours without Mass Media
Looking back at the 8 hours I just spend without using my cell phone, TV and computer, meticulously avoiding magazines, bill boards and other news carriers, I have to say that it was quite challenging for me to keep it up. What was especially hard to do, was to abandon my blog and my YouTube account for the time being. They are both about political world events, in particular about my home country Egypt. Since the start of the revolution or Arab Spring, the news have spiraled and you really need to stay connected not only to the conventional media like news papers and TV, but more importantly you need to closely follow the individual uploads posted as videos or tweets. On my own channel, blog and twitter, I get a lot of commentaries and subscriptions and I am always eager to keep the discussion and exchange going. My specialty is news, “what is going on right now” and to give my thoughts and opinion about what is happening. Therefore, I really felt the suffering of missing out on the latest events, which would be essential in order to be able to produce an opinion as well as respond to the commentaries or emails left in response to my videos and essays. So to say, even if I decided to read the posts and to answer, I realized I would not have been able to do so, because of my lack of information about what is going on, following my abstinence from the news at that time.
Besides the lack of information, the social part also played a substantial role. I missed communicating and debating opinions with friends and “followers”. This is the part of my day when I usually relax and socialize and enjoy reading posts and thoughts of others. It is a personal exchange and not having it in my day makes me feel like something important is missing. Another difficulty not less significant was the fact that as a business owner being connected to people is an essential part of my work day. Not communicating with them means doing harm to my business. It is not only about these substantial calls to suppliers and employees to keep the daily routines going, but also the communications with customers even if their calls do not seem to be directly connected to the business. As a restaurant owner, I am part of a neighborhood and people expect me to be part of their news system when it comes to local events and issues. A lot of my business is generated by these kinds of contacts and my cell phone is always busy.
My place is also a central point for printed news. There are always people distributing flyers and putting up posters announcing upcoming events. Therefore, it is almost impossible for me not to know what is hanging there in my windows or sitting on my counter for the purpose of informing the neighborhood about the latest events.
Another place to be checked on daily is our business web site and the email address connected to it. I need to know if there have been any problems with customer orders or the service in general. This is obviously a vital part of responding to our customers’ needs, especially in a neighborhood environment where people are closely connected.
Apart from the posters in my shop, it was easiest to stay away from bill boards that I widely ignored. Also, TV is not a very essential part of where my information comes from and could therefore be neglected without further difficulties. Printed media, like newspapers and magazines are not very important either. However, I have some newspaper online that I read and check on daily and that are essential for me to stay informed.
Conclusively, I have to admit that a break from mass media could be a period of relaxation and self-focus. You definitely start to busy yourself with other things sometimes into the experiment and remember things you used to do before the “invasion” of electronic media. However, it becomes clear that however alleviating it feels, electronic media is essential to the way I live today and I conduct my business and make my living – as well as I connect with others. Not having access to it definitely interferes with my efficiency and social competency.
The Patience and Wisdom of Job " Ayoub "
Scripture Reflection Paper: The Patience and Wisdom of Job
What makes the book of Job interesting is that we all experience pain and suffering at some point in our life and we end up looking for answers how to deal with the situations that we are experiencing. The story of Job " Ayoub" is intriguing because it treats the issue of retribution and explains that in this life people seem not always to get the reward or punishment that they deserve. The story is about a man named Job, who God himself in a dialogue with Satan describes with the words: “There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.” (Job 1:8). God knows his servant and it is implied that he also knows the result of the test he is going to inflict on him, when he agrees to let Satan take everything from him except his life. Job proves worthy of the divine assessment and when the afflictions begin to affect him, he initially seems to submit to the divine will and admits: …, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21). Here Job concedes to the fact that nothing in this world really belongs to us and that anything at any time can be taken away by the Allmighty. He places himself and his fate in the hands of the One that has the power over live and death and all things in between. And he also seems to understand that not everything in this life can be good and beneficial, but we also have to accept that sometimes things do not go the way we expect them to go or even worse seem to harm us and to inflict pain and sorrow on us. Hence when his wife suggests to him to curse God for his misery, he rebukes her by saying: …, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (Job 2:10). Job in his anguish and misery decides to keep relying on the fact that he is a righteous man and that he did not commit a sin great enough to deserve the cruel fate that he experiences. Throughout the book, he complains and even asks God to end his life, but he does not give in to his friends’ arguments, that men get what men deserve – that he must have sinned in order to be punished to this extend.
But his mental and emotional state is largely affected by the test that was imposed on him and that he considers as an unfair punishment. Due to this perspective, he falls into a stage of agony, where he claims that “…the arrows of the almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.... (Job 6:4). At this point, he is overwhelmed by the events, but he is not suffering “the poison of God” as he claims. What is torturing him is the lack of faith and trust in the eternal wisdom of his Creator. This lack opens the door to Satan’s games with his mind. The desperation and despair he is experiencing originate in the fact that he cannot see his fate as a test. He does not understand that there is a difference between life on earth and afterlife. If he considered earthly life as an eternal test, he would understand that while he is suffering, he is actually getting rewarded for his afterlife. In being righteous and staying righteous, as he is trying to do, he elevated his rewards to an even higher level. But he does not see it this way and therefore his complains culminate in: “My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.” (Job 10:1). He is almost giving up on his cause here and possibly even on the Mercy of God to deliver him from his calamities. But he stays aware of the fact that he is in God’s hand and cannot escape his fate: “In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being. (Job 12:10). But he gets ready to defend his cause and to argue about what is happening to him with God: “Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of thine hand. (Job 10:7). He wishes profoundly for an opportunity to do so and he is relying on himself to defend his cause: “I have indeed prepared my case; I know that I shall be vindicated.” (Job 13:18). He is certain that God, after talking to him, will correct the error. But how can a human correct God’s error. There is no divine error, but Job in his agony goes even further and ponders about the benefits of righteousness versus the gains of the unrighteous in this world: “Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of god is upon them. (Job 21:7-9) and further on: “They spend their days in prosperity and in peace they go down to She’ol. They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not desire to know your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? Is not their prosperity in fact their own achievement?” (Job 21:13-16). He insists on ‘staying on the right path’, but these reflections show again that he does not understand the deeper significance of what is happening to him. Like any human, he tends to look at the fate of others, who are better off, do not have to suffer or seem to have better lives. Again, he forgets three important points: First, that he does not have the knowledge to judge other peoples’ lives and happiness, as this knowledge rests with God alone. Second, he does not know the plans that God has with the people, that he lets enjoy life for a while before they are put to the test, like any human in this world is destined to be. And thirdly, he forgets, that we are rewarded –sometimes in this life- but most certainly in the next life for the tests that we passed successfully during our life time.
At a certain point, Job’s agony reaches its peak. He has exploited all avenues known to him and his friends are not of much help, as he insists, that he did not do anything to deserve the penalty he is receiving. He is firmly set in this idea but is also strong enough to keep his patience and his ways. But he still longs to understand, as the human minds always tries to comprehend: “Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. (Job 28:20-21).
The perspective of Job in this scripture is profoundly different from the job of the Qur’an, where he is described as a man with enormous patience and trust in God. He is aware of the fact that his fate lies in the hand of his Creator, just like the job in the Bible, but he also has the wisdom that when calamity or misfortune occur, one has to do his/her best to resolve the problem and then put his/her trust in God. He knows that this life is nothing but a test and that not a milligram of a righteous deed will be lost when the Day of Judgment comes to evaluate his life. He is aware that doing his best also includes to bear events with patience and to not despair in seemingly hopeless situations. Hence, he is assured that whatever his Creator imposes on him as a test is not too much burden on him, as his Creator knows what he is able to bear before the burden even reaches him. And for the question why bad people live good lives, he knows the answer. He understands that only God is All-knowing and therefore it is His decision when and how anyone in this life will be tested. But most importantly, he relies in the Mercy of his Creator for His Creation. He knows that mortals are not able to be righteous before their maker, but not for any other reason, that they are not God - The only Perfect One. Humans are not expected to be perfect, but they are expected to do their very best when it comes to following the rules and ways laid out to them by God. But because of our human imperfection the only thing that can deliver us is God’s mercy. That is why the ultimate prayer that restores job’s life in the Qur’an is not about complaint, desperation or wrangling with perceived injustice: “And [remember] Job, when he cried out to his Sustainer, ‘affliction has befallen me: but Thou art the Most Merciful of the merciful!’ Whereupon We responded upon him and removed all the affliction from which he suffered; and We gave him his family, doubling their number as an act of grace from Us, and as a reminder unto all who worship Us. (Qur'an 21:83-84)
What makes the book of Job interesting is that we all experience pain and suffering at some point in our life and we end up looking for answers how to deal with the situations that we are experiencing. The story of Job " Ayoub" is intriguing because it treats the issue of retribution and explains that in this life people seem not always to get the reward or punishment that they deserve. The story is about a man named Job, who God himself in a dialogue with Satan describes with the words: “There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.” (Job 1:8). God knows his servant and it is implied that he also knows the result of the test he is going to inflict on him, when he agrees to let Satan take everything from him except his life. Job proves worthy of the divine assessment and when the afflictions begin to affect him, he initially seems to submit to the divine will and admits: …, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21). Here Job concedes to the fact that nothing in this world really belongs to us and that anything at any time can be taken away by the Allmighty. He places himself and his fate in the hands of the One that has the power over live and death and all things in between. And he also seems to understand that not everything in this life can be good and beneficial, but we also have to accept that sometimes things do not go the way we expect them to go or even worse seem to harm us and to inflict pain and sorrow on us. Hence when his wife suggests to him to curse God for his misery, he rebukes her by saying: …, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (Job 2:10). Job in his anguish and misery decides to keep relying on the fact that he is a righteous man and that he did not commit a sin great enough to deserve the cruel fate that he experiences. Throughout the book, he complains and even asks God to end his life, but he does not give in to his friends’ arguments, that men get what men deserve – that he must have sinned in order to be punished to this extend.
But his mental and emotional state is largely affected by the test that was imposed on him and that he considers as an unfair punishment. Due to this perspective, he falls into a stage of agony, where he claims that “…the arrows of the almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me.... (Job 6:4). At this point, he is overwhelmed by the events, but he is not suffering “the poison of God” as he claims. What is torturing him is the lack of faith and trust in the eternal wisdom of his Creator. This lack opens the door to Satan’s games with his mind. The desperation and despair he is experiencing originate in the fact that he cannot see his fate as a test. He does not understand that there is a difference between life on earth and afterlife. If he considered earthly life as an eternal test, he would understand that while he is suffering, he is actually getting rewarded for his afterlife. In being righteous and staying righteous, as he is trying to do, he elevated his rewards to an even higher level. But he does not see it this way and therefore his complains culminate in: “My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.” (Job 10:1). He is almost giving up on his cause here and possibly even on the Mercy of God to deliver him from his calamities. But he stays aware of the fact that he is in God’s hand and cannot escape his fate: “In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being. (Job 12:10). But he gets ready to defend his cause and to argue about what is happening to him with God: “Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of thine hand. (Job 10:7). He wishes profoundly for an opportunity to do so and he is relying on himself to defend his cause: “I have indeed prepared my case; I know that I shall be vindicated.” (Job 13:18). He is certain that God, after talking to him, will correct the error. But how can a human correct God’s error. There is no divine error, but Job in his agony goes even further and ponders about the benefits of righteousness versus the gains of the unrighteous in this world: “Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of god is upon them. (Job 21:7-9) and further on: “They spend their days in prosperity and in peace they go down to She’ol. They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not desire to know your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? Is not their prosperity in fact their own achievement?” (Job 21:13-16). He insists on ‘staying on the right path’, but these reflections show again that he does not understand the deeper significance of what is happening to him. Like any human, he tends to look at the fate of others, who are better off, do not have to suffer or seem to have better lives. Again, he forgets three important points: First, that he does not have the knowledge to judge other peoples’ lives and happiness, as this knowledge rests with God alone. Second, he does not know the plans that God has with the people, that he lets enjoy life for a while before they are put to the test, like any human in this world is destined to be. And thirdly, he forgets, that we are rewarded –sometimes in this life- but most certainly in the next life for the tests that we passed successfully during our life time.
At a certain point, Job’s agony reaches its peak. He has exploited all avenues known to him and his friends are not of much help, as he insists, that he did not do anything to deserve the penalty he is receiving. He is firmly set in this idea but is also strong enough to keep his patience and his ways. But he still longs to understand, as the human minds always tries to comprehend: “Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. (Job 28:20-21).
The perspective of Job in this scripture is profoundly different from the job of the Qur’an, where he is described as a man with enormous patience and trust in God. He is aware of the fact that his fate lies in the hand of his Creator, just like the job in the Bible, but he also has the wisdom that when calamity or misfortune occur, one has to do his/her best to resolve the problem and then put his/her trust in God. He knows that this life is nothing but a test and that not a milligram of a righteous deed will be lost when the Day of Judgment comes to evaluate his life. He is aware that doing his best also includes to bear events with patience and to not despair in seemingly hopeless situations. Hence, he is assured that whatever his Creator imposes on him as a test is not too much burden on him, as his Creator knows what he is able to bear before the burden even reaches him. And for the question why bad people live good lives, he knows the answer. He understands that only God is All-knowing and therefore it is His decision when and how anyone in this life will be tested. But most importantly, he relies in the Mercy of his Creator for His Creation. He knows that mortals are not able to be righteous before their maker, but not for any other reason, that they are not God - The only Perfect One. Humans are not expected to be perfect, but they are expected to do their very best when it comes to following the rules and ways laid out to them by God. But because of our human imperfection the only thing that can deliver us is God’s mercy. That is why the ultimate prayer that restores job’s life in the Qur’an is not about complaint, desperation or wrangling with perceived injustice: “And [remember] Job, when he cried out to his Sustainer, ‘affliction has befallen me: but Thou art the Most Merciful of the merciful!’ Whereupon We responded upon him and removed all the affliction from which he suffered; and We gave him his family, doubling their number as an act of grace from Us, and as a reminder unto all who worship Us. (Qur'an 21:83-84)
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Scripture Reflection Paper: Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones
“The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me: “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the lord God: Come from four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the lord God: I am going to open you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from the graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you should know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”
Ezekiel’s time was a time of upheaval in the region. The northern kingdom of Israel had crumbled under the might of its attackers and King Josiah of Judah had died in a battle against the Egyptian forces. The power in the hands of his two sons began to weaken and Jerusalem was subdued, forcing one of his sons, Jehoahaz, and about 10.000 Jews to go into exile to Babylon; beneath them Ezekiel and his family. In a second attack against Jerusalem, the walls were breached, the city was plundered and the temple was burnt. The reign of the house of David had come to an end and the Jews were in a desperate situation: they were an exiled people without a state. So when God takes Ezekiel to the Valley of the Dry Bones, he is trying to comfort him by giving him hope on one hand, but also to demonstrate his absolute power over things and to remind him of the difference between a mortal and his Creator. Ezekiel was surely heartbroken, as his cherished Jerusalem had been destroyed and in addition to this, he had to bear the loss of his beloved wife. One of these events would have been enough to cause a lot of grief and sorrow, but Ezekiel had to face both events in a time when he and his people were homeless and the situation did not seem to improve in their favor.
When God takes him to the valley, he addresses him not by his name, or by his title as a prophet or servant of God. Instead he addresses him as what he is in distinction to God: He is a mortal; and the message that God has to inform him about is about just that: life and death. First he introduces him to the dry bones, which are a metaphor of the hopelessness of his people right now. Then he proves to him that by His power, He can effortless put the bones together into something that resembles human bodies. Just as today’s science is able to reconstruct cells, the bones become systematically reassembled and following a certain order start covering by flesh, tendons, blood vessels and skin. The message is threefold here. For one, He demonstrates to Ezekiel that it is within his Absolute Power to restore any of His creation, whenever he wishes to do so. Secondly, by doing so, he begins to plant hope into Ezekiels heart, that He will also restore the force and power into the bodies and minds of the defeated and exiled Jews and bring them back to a life as they used to know. Thirdly, He reminds him, that he will bring back to live the dead bones one day, and this will be the Day of Judgement for everyone, including friend and foe. So, He is not just sending Ezekiel back with new hope of a better future, he also implants in him the consciousness of the day when all his deeds (and the deeds of every single person) will be weighted for or against him (them).
God also does not stop at just restoring dry bones back to bodies. The story makes it equally clear that it is not enough to just reproduce the body by putting together bones, sinews and skin, as a skilled scientist in a lab. Live does not appear without the breath of the Almighty that animates His creation: The breath symbolizing the spiritual connection between the creation and The Creator. With this breath the divine nature of a human is infused into his soul and he acknowledges His God and recognizes Him.
The most relevant message for our lives is that, as mortals we are standing over a grave, wondering just like Ezekiel did what to say to dry bones and why even try to talk to them. It seems absurd, and Ezekiel, as a mortal, might have felt this way. We know that when the grave closes, there is no more hope, that we might see this person again. However, here we learn that God is not subject to these limits. He is telling Ezekiel, no matter where you are buried - and for Ezekiel this means he is far from his home – and how much your bones could be scattered, God is able to awake you and anyone else when the time has come. He is teaching us, that death is only a stage or transition and not a finality. This gives hope not only when it comes to the prospect of the afterlife, but also when it comes to hopeless situations in our daily lives. When things seem like they cannot be improved or changed any more, we tend to give up and retire and we forget, that we or any other human being does not have the last word on the issue. “Sleep over it!” seems like a sound advice, when it comes to these difficult situations, because time always shows, that there is another act to a problem or difficulty. There is hope, because there is a power that can change things from one direction into a new one in a speed that for us is oftentimes not even imaginable.
In the Quran, we find the story of Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) who, in order to gain assurance asks God to show him how He gives life: (And (remember) when Ibrahim said, “My Lord! Show me how You give life to the dead.” He (Allah) said: “Do you not believe” He (Ibrahim) said: “Yes (I believe)…) [2:260]
God accepts the affirmation of his faith and proceeds to show him with four birds how He resurrects what is dead. So we are left to ask, why Ibrahim -even though he believed- had to see with his own eyes. And this is also giving us the answer why in Ezekiel’s story God takes him to the place of action and does not just repeat to him, what he surely already knows: that God is the Creator of the universe, all creatures and mankind. It is said that, the above ayah (verse) refers to the doubts that attack the heart and the thoughts that Shaytan (Satan) inspires, but it also refers to the human nature: Just as the Prophet Muhammad told us: “We are more liable to seek certainty.”
So for the certainty of Ezekiel and his people, he was shown and demonstrated that God is The Almighty and Lord over life and death and anything in between. So God sent him back – just as he sent back Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) - to proclaim this message of hope to us after having seen with their own eyes.
My Critical Analysis of the Ireland – A Novel by Frank Delaney
From the beginning and throughout Delaney’s Ireland things are all about politics, self-government, forms of government, citizenship and autonomy of the individual in a governmental system as well as invasion and oppression. All sorts of political implications are present. And they are all weighted and assessed in regard to the Irish ideals, values, possibilities and realities. Delaney is telling a historic novel and is consequently taking us through the different eras of Irish and foreign rule on the island. According to the novel, the first invaders were Vikings, the Danes, who came in their famous longboats to raid and plunder the monasteries (Delaney 211). Other Scandinavians stayed and founded Dublin, from an ancient settlement along the river Liffy. However, these kinds of intruders either came for booty, and ultimately got defeated and expelled, or they chose to stay and to integrate themselves into the existing population after the rout of their fellow Vikings. In a direct contrast of these developments and utter shock, can the reader of Delaney’s novel witness the successive invasion of the English and the radical English politics of occupation with its campaigns of ethnical and religious cleaning. Delaney’s count ends with the Easter Rising in 1916, giving us a glimpse of the events in one of the key locations in Dublin that were seized by Irish republicans with the aim of ending the British rule.
In the beginning of Irish history, the power was in the hands of the strong, smart, free, eloquent and knowledgeable Irish people, as in the cases of the Engineer of Newgrance , Conor O’Conor, St Brendan, St Patrick and others. With the arrival of the invaders, ambitions and military capacities of the leaders became more important, but the ideal leader was still more than just a pugnacious military leader. He reigned with wisdom and personal charisma, like King Brian Boru, the hero of Clontarf. The arrival of the Normans in Ireland fundamentally changed the political powers within the Irish society. And the reader soon learns that a new kind of leader had made their way into the Irish history. They were more ambitious and focused on their own personal short termed gains, like Dermot McMurrough, who is willing to bestow his country’s throne onto an English; or well meaning, glorious commanders like Hugh O’Neill who were able to win a glorious battle, but bitterly failed to win the war, because they were lacking the necessary foresight and miscalculated the political implications of the time. And Delaney announces this shift to us through the “English gentleman called Chesterton” whom he makes say: “the great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad. For all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad.” (Delaney 231) At this point of the novel the average Irish increasingly changed into an, impulsive, emotionally domineered, notoriously drunk, uncontrollably rebellious and undisciplined, unorganized rebel whose efforts are doomed to failure or who sinks into dull passivity and helplessness. He is the victim of his own belligerence and despair, as he fails to persevere when necessary and to control his desires when crucial. All that is left to him of the above values is his knick for poetry and sad songs, while he is sinking deeper and deeper into his feebleness and vulnerability imposed on him by the English occupiers. He becomes a foreigner in his own country expelled from his lands, driven into slavery. Later on, after slavery was not a lucrative business anymore, he was forced into emigration on vessels that frequently brought death by illness or starvation to its passengers during the journey. If he succeeded to survive, he mostly had to continue his live in a new type of misery and slum somewhere abroad, for he was a Catholic and a disease-ridden danger to the general public.
As opposed to the Irish agony and anguish, the British are portrayed as the victorious and unjust. The barbarity of their Penal Laws is demonstrated by Ronan and his professor. (Delaney 334) For the Irish these laws meant the loss of all they cherish, their land and their horses, and the loss of what they needed for their very survival, their fields, livestock and homes. As the English poet, serviceman and landowner of Irish soil phrased in his recommendation to the Queen about the Irish problem: “[There is] no need to waste soldiers and money to kill [the Irish]. Cut off their means of farming, destroy their food base, and one day they’ll turn to eating each other and that’ll be the end of them.”(Delaney 340) The English ruled merciless and with it seems a demoniac plan. Their goal was to rid the island of the unruly inhabitants without concern for the weak and defenseless and without distinction between fighter and civilian. They first criminalized them through their legislation; next they sent Oliver Cromwell, to massacre and reduce the Irish population as much as possible. The ones that his campaigns didn’t kill were shipped to the West-Indies into slavery, choosing the strongest and most fit for the journey, and leaving behind a population robbed of their heads, strongholds and workforce. The slaves had to suffer an unknown fate and many of them died from the exertions of the journey and the abuse of the slave owners who starved or worked them to death or used them for commercial interbreeding with other slaves. (Martin)
The laws and battles often reflected the controversy of the two religious groups: the Protestant English and the Catholic Irish. Being Catholic was part of being Irish and the English counted on the effect of de-rooting the people of Ireland by taking away their religion and forcing them to join the Protestant church. Under the cloak of a difference of religions the battle continued for the Irish population while in reality the fight was about power and profit. In 1690, the Battle of Boyne took place and it is denotable that this war was fought between the “Protestant Dutchman, William of Orange, who had become King William the Third of England in the previous year” and the man that “he had put off the English throne, James the Second, the Catholic-convert son of King Charles the First, the man who was executed by …Oliver Cromwell.” (Delaney 375) Ireland had merely become a pawn in the hands of the powerful.
What the Penal Laws, Oliver Cromwell and the day to day life under the English law of dispossession did not accomplish, the Potato Famine almost achieved it. Those who had succeeded to cling to their piece of land or rented land from rich Protestant land owners were doomed to succumb to the last wave of mass starvation or deportation, euphemistically named as emigration to Canada and the US. And while the people of Ireland were living in burrows, just like animals and starving to death under the very eyes of those who had robbed them from their means of living, the English parliament had little interest in helping or easing the burden on them. According to the President of Quinnipac University, the disaster could have been avoided, “if only the British authorities had possessed the will and compassion to deliver food to the starving Irish”. He also points out, that recent historians found out that there was more than adequate food during the time of the famine and that the country’s food exports actually increased during these years. (Lahey)
Considering the ongoing violence, oppression and intentional neglect, it is little surprising that there were always part of the population revolting in one way or the other against their oppressors, when they found themselves in a position to do so. Delaney takes the reader through the story of uprising and fight of the troubled county of Wexford. He tells us about the brave and victorious Irish rebels who after long battles –once more- lose the war due to “traitors and slaves” in their own lines. (Delaney 456) This seems like an eternal theme of the Irish fighting and failing, and Delaney makes it clear to the reader that at the end of these struggles the Irish never achieved much, but paid a high price. However, he admits through his stories, that their resistance helped them to preserve their national pride and served as inspiration for generations to follow.
However, this is where Delaney’s novel falls short. Those inspired by the armed uprising of the oppressed do not have much place in the story. As these fights are often regional, along the Northern border, he lets Uncle Bob explain to Ronan, who is from the Southern border, the impact of the armed assaults on the English for the people in the neighboring counties: “The IRA attacks barracks and policemen, they kill people when they can, close up, if they’re able, and just because we’re Catholics, we get blamed.” (Delaney 405) In another chapter, Ronan has an encounter with the family of one of the fighters; his reaction is right away that he does not want to know about it, but clearly avoids to even learn more about the subject, even though this might have been an interesting story – which is bizarre because the one thing that keeps Ronan’s character going throughout the novel is his hunt for stories: But here he flinches and Delaney only allows the comment of “Pacifism is a cover-up” to represent a different point of view. (Delaney 428)
Yet the picture would not be complete without the opposed protagonists of the active armed fighter. Delaney depicts the lawyers and politicians that are struggling for Irish rights and sovereignty as the ones that have been successfully improving the situation of the Irish during the last two centuries. They are educated enough to enter the legal, juridical or governmental system of the English. His message is that only the one who adapts can survive and change. However, their power often proves to be very limited to what the English are willing to give and to allow. Delaney hints that some of them might have relied on the pressure that the armed forces created to press for the changes they wanted to achieve. But they would never officially join them or associate with them. Their power was almost more based on the admiration and respect that they received from their compatriots than their achievements with the English. Ronan’s father himself a successful layer, left Ronan a considerable fortune after his death which clearly stands for social and financial achievements. Another protagonist is Daniel O’Connell, who the author uses, once more, as a vehicle to transmit the message of pacifism. In Charles Steward Parnell, who developed the system of civil disobedience, the reader found yet again an example of the brave and glorious fighter –this in the political arena instead of the battlefield- who let his skillfully gained power fall victim to his own personal desires and whims.
During the third part of Delaney’s Ireland, it becomes rather evident, that the author does not particularly call for a forceful rebellion against the British. He is trying to smooth things out, starting with the Potato Plight, which catastrophic consequences he fails to emphasize in his narration. He forgets to mention, that the English parliament refused to help in any possible way, but instead was hoping for the complete and final collapse of the Irish population. They did not want to deal with rebellions and guerilla wars against their citizens any longer and thought that this would be an easy way to resolve the problem. Considering that the English at the time were rather satisfied with a vanishing Irish population, one could be tempted to speculate, that this might have been an early case of biological warfare. Delaney also chooses to leave out the consequences of deportation into slavery or emigration. He does not follow the slaves to the West Indies or the emigrants on their death vessels to Canada or America. He kindly omits the detail of their brutal lives as slaves and he ignores the fact that Irish emigrants were anything but welcome in the new world. As Catholics, they represented the old world values and oppression that the first emigrants had tried to escape from. Destitute and often ill from the exhaustion of their journey they ended up starving again in the slums of their new homeland.
When it comes to armed resistance, the author’s message could not be clearer: he openly endorses the pacifist way as the only acceptable mean of gaining rights and equality for the Irish. He never really discusses the North-South conflict and clearly does not think that the English are supposed to ever return Dublin to the Irish. Currently, this is surely not on the negotiating table of the British. On the contrary, he has Mr Yeats repeating once more: “Man shouldn’t make war, it opposes the natural spirit, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” (Delaney 304)
Throughout the novel, Delaney seems to prepare the reader on several occasions to the fact that Ireland is an occupied country, almost by nature. He speaks about the natural vulnerability as an island and later on he has an authority on the subject, Ronan’s professor, lecture the reader about the fact that many Irish families have Norman names. (Delaney 248) However, he fails to mention, that this is a very common “phenomenon” in most places in the world. However, over time and especially nowadays, these are integrated citizens with equal rights and they are not affiliated with an oppressing outside force. His attempt to confuse the reader into thinking that people are what they are by name is misleading – they are what they are by their behavior and their level of integration. Nowadays, the people the professor is mentioning are of Irish nationality and are treated as Irish by their own government and by the British. Prepared like that, Delaney believes, the reader does not feel the urge to question why Ireland has to be an occupied country as its status quo and its predestination.
Delaney’s proclamation against armed resistance finds his peak in the relation of the Storyteller’s experience in the post office during the Easter Rising. Under the excuse of describing the human side of live in his stories, he has his protagonist describe the fighters that are going to face the heavily armed and well prepared British troops: two monks, an armed couple, and a boy are the persons of choice. One would assume that when describing an army, one would look at the actual fighters, which he later belittles as “young Irish boys”. (Delaney 538) The leaders of the uprising are described as unconfident, remaining “puzzled that no greater attack came”. (Delaney 539) A surprising fact, as no one would assume that a leader would be foolish enough to lead his followers in a fight from which he would not expect some kind of gain or victory. Delaney continues to display the foolishness of the Irish rebels to the reader by introducing the heart breaking story of Jerry Quinlaun and his family. If he continues to fight, he will let down his family, because he is going to die. If he leaves his fellow fighters, he is letting his country and fellow fighters down. The desperate narration goes on showing one example after the other, explaining to the reader why this fight was doomed to failure from the beginning. He is also letting us know, that many of the Irish did not agree with the actions of the fighters, calling them “a bunch of lunatics”, “jackasses” and making it clear that the “military’ll rout them out soon enough”. (Delaney 529)
Delaney’s Storyteller left the scene when the defeat becomes obvious and under the last sacrifice of a young soldier who wanted him to relate the story of the Easter Rising to the generations to come. However, Delaney’s version omits to mention, that the post-office incident was part of a bigger plan. He does not inform the reader, that the majority of the British troops were heavily engaged in World War I at the time and that the Irish were expecting a German ship with arms on board, which never made it to Ireland, because it was intercepted by the British Navy. The day of the uprising, several paramilitary groups, seized key locations in Dublin, proclaiming the independent Republic of Ireland. They were supported by other strikes against central locations in other counties. (Wiki “Easter Rising”) Would the result have been different, if the weapons would have reached Ireland, if more would have participated at the time? Was the plan really that foolish? In hindsight, one must admit, that the leaders were not as plan less as Delaney describes them and the fighters might not have been as inexperienced. However, the uprising seemed to have impacted the rise of republicanism form these days on and in the General Election to the British parliament in 1918, the republican Sinn Fein party, the political wing of the IRS won 73 out of 105 seats. (Wiki “Easter Rising”) The political success of Sinn Fein was in the following often interweaved with the campaigns of the IRA.
So why does Delaney offer a fragmented picture of this period? Is it because he does not want to involve in the difficult debate about the legitimacy of occupied people fighting for their sovereignty with the use of weapons? Being a relevant and controversial topic, it is not the material for a nostalgic story. It is a highly challenging question to answer. Delaney, however, does not aim that high. He, himself Irish, only seems to capitalize on the tell-able and sellable part of the Irish history. And one cannot be too surprised by this. He left Ireland after he finished his education to work for the BBC, and, later on, exchanged his new home country Britain against one in the United States. He overcame his Catholic bonds and married an American divorcee. He turned his back to most of the things that he uses to characterize his Irish fellow citizens, but still he remains the writer that tells their stories and sings their tales. His calling for a peaceful solution today would be a worthy and noble one, if he would have been able to mention the involvements of the IRA fighters just as he mentions those of the long ago past of Ireland. He would have sounded unbiased and more credible. There is surely nothing wrong with being a pacifist, but cutting history short by making the audience believe that Ireland’s independence was only achieved by democratic ways is misleading. Today’s reader ought to know this, because it is part of the historical reality of Ireland.
Overall, Delaney is telling history in a novel, a fiction and he relates what he wants and omits what he chooses. And in his own words, transmitted by his protagonist, the storyteller: “A story has only one master – its narrator; he decides what he wants his story to do. I know, I have always known, what I want my stories to achieve – I want to make people believe.” (Delaney 278). Whatever Delaney wants to make us believe by his novel Ireland, history has its own ways to resurface facts and if the reader desires to gain knowledge of the Irish history and politics, then he will hopefully realize that he is better of with a more authentic, detailed and unbiased source of information than a novel.
Works Cited
Wikipedia “Easter Rising” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising)
Delaney, Frank. Ireland – A Novel. Harper, 2008. Print
Martin, John. The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten ‘White’ Slaves. Global Research, January 2013. (http://www.globalresearch.ca)
Lahey, John L. Ph.D. President of Quinnipac University. The Great Hunger. Hamden, Connecticut. January 2013. Exhibition.
From the beginning and throughout Delaney’s Ireland things are all about politics, self-government, forms of government, citizenship and autonomy of the individual in a governmental system as well as invasion and oppression. All sorts of political implications are present. And they are all weighted and assessed in regard to the Irish ideals, values, possibilities and realities. Delaney is telling a historic novel and is consequently taking us through the different eras of Irish and foreign rule on the island. According to the novel, the first invaders were Vikings, the Danes, who came in their famous longboats to raid and plunder the monasteries (Delaney 211). Other Scandinavians stayed and founded Dublin, from an ancient settlement along the river Liffy. However, these kinds of intruders either came for booty, and ultimately got defeated and expelled, or they chose to stay and to integrate themselves into the existing population after the rout of their fellow Vikings. In a direct contrast of these developments and utter shock, can the reader of Delaney’s novel witness the successive invasion of the English and the radical English politics of occupation with its campaigns of ethnical and religious cleaning. Delaney’s count ends with the Easter Rising in 1916, giving us a glimpse of the events in one of the key locations in Dublin that were seized by Irish republicans with the aim of ending the British rule.
In the beginning of Irish history, the power was in the hands of the strong, smart, free, eloquent and knowledgeable Irish people, as in the cases of the Engineer of Newgrance , Conor O’Conor, St Brendan, St Patrick and others. With the arrival of the invaders, ambitions and military capacities of the leaders became more important, but the ideal leader was still more than just a pugnacious military leader. He reigned with wisdom and personal charisma, like King Brian Boru, the hero of Clontarf. The arrival of the Normans in Ireland fundamentally changed the political powers within the Irish society. And the reader soon learns that a new kind of leader had made their way into the Irish history. They were more ambitious and focused on their own personal short termed gains, like Dermot McMurrough, who is willing to bestow his country’s throne onto an English; or well meaning, glorious commanders like Hugh O’Neill who were able to win a glorious battle, but bitterly failed to win the war, because they were lacking the necessary foresight and miscalculated the political implications of the time. And Delaney announces this shift to us through the “English gentleman called Chesterton” whom he makes say: “the great Gaels of Ireland are the men that God made mad. For all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad.” (Delaney 231) At this point of the novel the average Irish increasingly changed into an, impulsive, emotionally domineered, notoriously drunk, uncontrollably rebellious and undisciplined, unorganized rebel whose efforts are doomed to failure or who sinks into dull passivity and helplessness. He is the victim of his own belligerence and despair, as he fails to persevere when necessary and to control his desires when crucial. All that is left to him of the above values is his knick for poetry and sad songs, while he is sinking deeper and deeper into his feebleness and vulnerability imposed on him by the English occupiers. He becomes a foreigner in his own country expelled from his lands, driven into slavery. Later on, after slavery was not a lucrative business anymore, he was forced into emigration on vessels that frequently brought death by illness or starvation to its passengers during the journey. If he succeeded to survive, he mostly had to continue his live in a new type of misery and slum somewhere abroad, for he was a Catholic and a disease-ridden danger to the general public.
As opposed to the Irish agony and anguish, the British are portrayed as the victorious and unjust. The barbarity of their Penal Laws is demonstrated by Ronan and his professor. (Delaney 334) For the Irish these laws meant the loss of all they cherish, their land and their horses, and the loss of what they needed for their very survival, their fields, livestock and homes. As the English poet, serviceman and landowner of Irish soil phrased in his recommendation to the Queen about the Irish problem: “[There is] no need to waste soldiers and money to kill [the Irish]. Cut off their means of farming, destroy their food base, and one day they’ll turn to eating each other and that’ll be the end of them.”(Delaney 340) The English ruled merciless and with it seems a demoniac plan. Their goal was to rid the island of the unruly inhabitants without concern for the weak and defenseless and without distinction between fighter and civilian. They first criminalized them through their legislation; next they sent Oliver Cromwell, to massacre and reduce the Irish population as much as possible. The ones that his campaigns didn’t kill were shipped to the West-Indies into slavery, choosing the strongest and most fit for the journey, and leaving behind a population robbed of their heads, strongholds and workforce. The slaves had to suffer an unknown fate and many of them died from the exertions of the journey and the abuse of the slave owners who starved or worked them to death or used them for commercial interbreeding with other slaves. (Martin)
The laws and battles often reflected the controversy of the two religious groups: the Protestant English and the Catholic Irish. Being Catholic was part of being Irish and the English counted on the effect of de-rooting the people of Ireland by taking away their religion and forcing them to join the Protestant church. Under the cloak of a difference of religions the battle continued for the Irish population while in reality the fight was about power and profit. In 1690, the Battle of Boyne took place and it is denotable that this war was fought between the “Protestant Dutchman, William of Orange, who had become King William the Third of England in the previous year” and the man that “he had put off the English throne, James the Second, the Catholic-convert son of King Charles the First, the man who was executed by …Oliver Cromwell.” (Delaney 375) Ireland had merely become a pawn in the hands of the powerful.
What the Penal Laws, Oliver Cromwell and the day to day life under the English law of dispossession did not accomplish, the Potato Famine almost achieved it. Those who had succeeded to cling to their piece of land or rented land from rich Protestant land owners were doomed to succumb to the last wave of mass starvation or deportation, euphemistically named as emigration to Canada and the US. And while the people of Ireland were living in burrows, just like animals and starving to death under the very eyes of those who had robbed them from their means of living, the English parliament had little interest in helping or easing the burden on them. According to the President of Quinnipac University, the disaster could have been avoided, “if only the British authorities had possessed the will and compassion to deliver food to the starving Irish”. He also points out, that recent historians found out that there was more than adequate food during the time of the famine and that the country’s food exports actually increased during these years. (Lahey)
Considering the ongoing violence, oppression and intentional neglect, it is little surprising that there were always part of the population revolting in one way or the other against their oppressors, when they found themselves in a position to do so. Delaney takes the reader through the story of uprising and fight of the troubled county of Wexford. He tells us about the brave and victorious Irish rebels who after long battles –once more- lose the war due to “traitors and slaves” in their own lines. (Delaney 456) This seems like an eternal theme of the Irish fighting and failing, and Delaney makes it clear to the reader that at the end of these struggles the Irish never achieved much, but paid a high price. However, he admits through his stories, that their resistance helped them to preserve their national pride and served as inspiration for generations to follow.
However, this is where Delaney’s novel falls short. Those inspired by the armed uprising of the oppressed do not have much place in the story. As these fights are often regional, along the Northern border, he lets Uncle Bob explain to Ronan, who is from the Southern border, the impact of the armed assaults on the English for the people in the neighboring counties: “The IRA attacks barracks and policemen, they kill people when they can, close up, if they’re able, and just because we’re Catholics, we get blamed.” (Delaney 405) In another chapter, Ronan has an encounter with the family of one of the fighters; his reaction is right away that he does not want to know about it, but clearly avoids to even learn more about the subject, even though this might have been an interesting story – which is bizarre because the one thing that keeps Ronan’s character going throughout the novel is his hunt for stories: But here he flinches and Delaney only allows the comment of “Pacifism is a cover-up” to represent a different point of view. (Delaney 428)
Yet the picture would not be complete without the opposed protagonists of the active armed fighter. Delaney depicts the lawyers and politicians that are struggling for Irish rights and sovereignty as the ones that have been successfully improving the situation of the Irish during the last two centuries. They are educated enough to enter the legal, juridical or governmental system of the English. His message is that only the one who adapts can survive and change. However, their power often proves to be very limited to what the English are willing to give and to allow. Delaney hints that some of them might have relied on the pressure that the armed forces created to press for the changes they wanted to achieve. But they would never officially join them or associate with them. Their power was almost more based on the admiration and respect that they received from their compatriots than their achievements with the English. Ronan’s father himself a successful layer, left Ronan a considerable fortune after his death which clearly stands for social and financial achievements. Another protagonist is Daniel O’Connell, who the author uses, once more, as a vehicle to transmit the message of pacifism. In Charles Steward Parnell, who developed the system of civil disobedience, the reader found yet again an example of the brave and glorious fighter –this in the political arena instead of the battlefield- who let his skillfully gained power fall victim to his own personal desires and whims.
During the third part of Delaney’s Ireland, it becomes rather evident, that the author does not particularly call for a forceful rebellion against the British. He is trying to smooth things out, starting with the Potato Plight, which catastrophic consequences he fails to emphasize in his narration. He forgets to mention, that the English parliament refused to help in any possible way, but instead was hoping for the complete and final collapse of the Irish population. They did not want to deal with rebellions and guerilla wars against their citizens any longer and thought that this would be an easy way to resolve the problem. Considering that the English at the time were rather satisfied with a vanishing Irish population, one could be tempted to speculate, that this might have been an early case of biological warfare. Delaney also chooses to leave out the consequences of deportation into slavery or emigration. He does not follow the slaves to the West Indies or the emigrants on their death vessels to Canada or America. He kindly omits the detail of their brutal lives as slaves and he ignores the fact that Irish emigrants were anything but welcome in the new world. As Catholics, they represented the old world values and oppression that the first emigrants had tried to escape from. Destitute and often ill from the exhaustion of their journey they ended up starving again in the slums of their new homeland.
When it comes to armed resistance, the author’s message could not be clearer: he openly endorses the pacifist way as the only acceptable mean of gaining rights and equality for the Irish. He never really discusses the North-South conflict and clearly does not think that the English are supposed to ever return Dublin to the Irish. Currently, this is surely not on the negotiating table of the British. On the contrary, he has Mr Yeats repeating once more: “Man shouldn’t make war, it opposes the natural spirit, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” (Delaney 304)
Throughout the novel, Delaney seems to prepare the reader on several occasions to the fact that Ireland is an occupied country, almost by nature. He speaks about the natural vulnerability as an island and later on he has an authority on the subject, Ronan’s professor, lecture the reader about the fact that many Irish families have Norman names. (Delaney 248) However, he fails to mention, that this is a very common “phenomenon” in most places in the world. However, over time and especially nowadays, these are integrated citizens with equal rights and they are not affiliated with an oppressing outside force. His attempt to confuse the reader into thinking that people are what they are by name is misleading – they are what they are by their behavior and their level of integration. Nowadays, the people the professor is mentioning are of Irish nationality and are treated as Irish by their own government and by the British. Prepared like that, Delaney believes, the reader does not feel the urge to question why Ireland has to be an occupied country as its status quo and its predestination.
Delaney’s proclamation against armed resistance finds his peak in the relation of the Storyteller’s experience in the post office during the Easter Rising. Under the excuse of describing the human side of live in his stories, he has his protagonist describe the fighters that are going to face the heavily armed and well prepared British troops: two monks, an armed couple, and a boy are the persons of choice. One would assume that when describing an army, one would look at the actual fighters, which he later belittles as “young Irish boys”. (Delaney 538) The leaders of the uprising are described as unconfident, remaining “puzzled that no greater attack came”. (Delaney 539) A surprising fact, as no one would assume that a leader would be foolish enough to lead his followers in a fight from which he would not expect some kind of gain or victory. Delaney continues to display the foolishness of the Irish rebels to the reader by introducing the heart breaking story of Jerry Quinlaun and his family. If he continues to fight, he will let down his family, because he is going to die. If he leaves his fellow fighters, he is letting his country and fellow fighters down. The desperate narration goes on showing one example after the other, explaining to the reader why this fight was doomed to failure from the beginning. He is also letting us know, that many of the Irish did not agree with the actions of the fighters, calling them “a bunch of lunatics”, “jackasses” and making it clear that the “military’ll rout them out soon enough”. (Delaney 529)
Delaney’s Storyteller left the scene when the defeat becomes obvious and under the last sacrifice of a young soldier who wanted him to relate the story of the Easter Rising to the generations to come. However, Delaney’s version omits to mention, that the post-office incident was part of a bigger plan. He does not inform the reader, that the majority of the British troops were heavily engaged in World War I at the time and that the Irish were expecting a German ship with arms on board, which never made it to Ireland, because it was intercepted by the British Navy. The day of the uprising, several paramilitary groups, seized key locations in Dublin, proclaiming the independent Republic of Ireland. They were supported by other strikes against central locations in other counties. (Wiki “Easter Rising”) Would the result have been different, if the weapons would have reached Ireland, if more would have participated at the time? Was the plan really that foolish? In hindsight, one must admit, that the leaders were not as plan less as Delaney describes them and the fighters might not have been as inexperienced. However, the uprising seemed to have impacted the rise of republicanism form these days on and in the General Election to the British parliament in 1918, the republican Sinn Fein party, the political wing of the IRS won 73 out of 105 seats. (Wiki “Easter Rising”) The political success of Sinn Fein was in the following often interweaved with the campaigns of the IRA.
So why does Delaney offer a fragmented picture of this period? Is it because he does not want to involve in the difficult debate about the legitimacy of occupied people fighting for their sovereignty with the use of weapons? Being a relevant and controversial topic, it is not the material for a nostalgic story. It is a highly challenging question to answer. Delaney, however, does not aim that high. He, himself Irish, only seems to capitalize on the tell-able and sellable part of the Irish history. And one cannot be too surprised by this. He left Ireland after he finished his education to work for the BBC, and, later on, exchanged his new home country Britain against one in the United States. He overcame his Catholic bonds and married an American divorcee. He turned his back to most of the things that he uses to characterize his Irish fellow citizens, but still he remains the writer that tells their stories and sings their tales. His calling for a peaceful solution today would be a worthy and noble one, if he would have been able to mention the involvements of the IRA fighters just as he mentions those of the long ago past of Ireland. He would have sounded unbiased and more credible. There is surely nothing wrong with being a pacifist, but cutting history short by making the audience believe that Ireland’s independence was only achieved by democratic ways is misleading. Today’s reader ought to know this, because it is part of the historical reality of Ireland.
Overall, Delaney is telling history in a novel, a fiction and he relates what he wants and omits what he chooses. And in his own words, transmitted by his protagonist, the storyteller: “A story has only one master – its narrator; he decides what he wants his story to do. I know, I have always known, what I want my stories to achieve – I want to make people believe.” (Delaney 278). Whatever Delaney wants to make us believe by his novel Ireland, history has its own ways to resurface facts and if the reader desires to gain knowledge of the Irish history and politics, then he will hopefully realize that he is better of with a more authentic, detailed and unbiased source of information than a novel.
Works Cited
Wikipedia “Easter Rising” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising)
Delaney, Frank. Ireland – A Novel. Harper, 2008. Print
Martin, John. The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten ‘White’ Slaves. Global Research, January 2013. (http://www.globalresearch.ca)
Lahey, John L. Ph.D. President of Quinnipac University. The Great Hunger. Hamden, Connecticut. January 2013. Exhibition.
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