I suppose we could not expect to escape the snow seeing as it has been all around us for the past while. My friends in Birmingham say they have 18 inches of it outside their door. So it was no surprise when we woke up on Monday morning to find that we were all blanketed in white. Hopefully it will not last too long. Meanwhile family members in Australia are being toasted alive with temperatures over 40 degrees some days.
Congratulations to Kay Scanlon and Gerry Long who got engaged recently. We wish them a good future together.
I like watching “The meaning of Life” programme on RTE 1 on Sundays night with Gay Byrne. He always has interesting guests and last Sunday night he was interviewing John Lonergan who was governor of first Limerick and then Mountjoy prison. John is well known for his sense of injustice and was a champion of the prisoners as he feels that their life circumstances contributed to their downfall. Usually people like that have a great faith in God or Buddha or some deity anyway but I was most surprised to learn that John Lonergan has no faith at all. Does not believe in God, does not believe in an afterlife but firmly believes that we should do good with the life we have. It put me thinking. Our Catholic faith says “Faith without good works is dead.” ( James 2:14-26) So is the opposite true also. Are good works without faith dead also? Something to ponder on for the week!
I include a haiku from “The Purple Pencil” by Peg Prendeville
January
Stillness in the air
All green turned to white; the world
silenced and waiting.