More Irish Musings: Life Among the Ruins

Several friends and their families have been journeying through health issues these past several months:  cancer treatments, hospital stays, rehabilitation... and, for a few, final days.  It's difficult to grapple with mortality, especially since so much of our lives have ignored this all-too-human reality.

We notice the decline in our abilities, and we wonder when we became mortal.  How can we support one another in these moments of vulnerability?

Where do you find support?

(Photo: Round Tower and Headstones,
Glendalogh Monastery, Ireland - Larry Gardepie)

As our tour group traveled south from Dublin to the Wicklow Mountains on our last day in Ireland, I was holding these friends in prayer.  It seemed a fitting reflection on this final day on this journey.  Our destination: Glendalough Monastery, established over one thousand years ago by St. Kevin.  He wanted to live apart as a hermit, but his holiness soon attracted men and women from the surrounding areas who wanted to live in community.

When we arrived, hundreds of people were already walking among the ruins of these monastic grounds.  But, even with all these fellow travelers, the place was peaceful, holy, and contemplative.

What do you seek?

(Photo:  Markers and Headstones,
Glendalough Cemetery - Larry Gardepie)

The grounds were a photographer's paradise!  So many beautiful angles and sights:  moving slowly, changing direction, Noticing Life among the Headstone-Reminders of Life Gone -- flowers, rolling hills, babbling streams, bees and butterflies...  Life among the Ruins!

In the monastery's Cathedral, one step to the left revealed colorful rays of light streaming into the ruins.

Can you step aside and see anew?

(Photo: Remains of Glendalough Cathedral - Larry Gardepie)

Maybe our support for friends and community is the ability to Step Aside... and allow Life to reenter what was considered An Ending.  Maybe in Dialogue, we are invited to set aside our Gift of Talking... and treasure our Ability to Listen.  Maybe in the Silence of Death we notice Messages of Hope.

Over 1,000 years after Glendalough was established as a Monastic City, people still travel there in search of life among the ruins.

Where can we see life and messages of hope this week?

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting