Hallelujah! A Wonderful Wedding Surprise in Meath, Ireland

My brother Kevin sent this to me. Reminds me of Fr. Paul Desch's approach to things (he sang "Du, Du, Liegst Mir Im Herzen" at my daughter Emily's wedding). This is Fr. Ray Kelly and the wedding took place in Meath, Ireland.



Here's an article from the Irish Times on Fr. Kelly: Fr. Kelly article

Wonderful Poetry Reading at Lakeland Last Evening

We had our 15th annual Poetry Month reading at Lakeland Community College last evening, Kathy Fink was emcee, and the featured readers were Bill French, me, Alynn Mahle, and Tobin Terry. Open microphone readers included Bob Speer, Joy Christianson, Robin Crawford, Christopher Franke, Suzanne Ondrus, and others. The open mic readers are all accomplished poets in their own right and could easily have been featured. I read the following poems:

• "Still Life, With Grand Babies" [a poem for Linda]
• "Thanksgiving for Companions" [a poem especially for Kathy Flora and my St. Mary's friends]
• "Dream Haiku in Three Languages" [in English, Irish, and German, for Linda]
• "Short Memory Needed in Lake and Geauga Counties" [about our late-late snows in Ohio's snowbelt]
• "Klara im Zwielicht" [a poem in German--for an old friend]
• "Blood Root" [a poem set in the spring rain at Holden Arboretum, with thanks to K.O.]
• "Lucky (Stones) at Mentor Headlands (1964)"

In "Lucky Stones" I got to sing a bit of the Everly Brothers' song "Cathy's Clown," which is mentioned in the poem.

So many wonderful poems. I particularly loved Tobin's brilliant "Nursery Crimes," in which he sings, quite a bit, the somewhat twisted songs he learned at his mother's knee (a mother I would like to meet!). Alynn's final poem, which is about poetry and the writing of poetry, is flat-out brilliant. Bob Speer, one of the elder statesmen of the night, was exceptional with his narrative and dialect poems. Joy Christianson had wonderful linked haiku poems. Christopher Franke is one of a kind--he is very good and often wickedly funny. And Suzanne Ondrus read us a beautiful and sexy short poem from her new book, Passion Seeds. She will do a featured reading and book signing in a couple weeks--can't wait! Thanks to Kathy Fink for organizing and emceeing this wonderful event!

Kathy Fink

Bill French

Alynn Mahle

Tobin Terry

Bob Speer

Robin Crawford

Christopher Franke

Suzanne Ondrus

Bob Coughlin, Bill French, Alynn Mahle, Tobin Terry

What the Church SHOULD Look Like!

Retirement Mass for Fr. Paul Desch OFM--Holy Name Church, Cincinnati.

Holy Name Church, Mt. Auburn, Cincinnati

After the wonderful service at Holy Name

Emily, Fr. Paul Desch OFM, and Brian Homan

Today we attended the retirement mass and celebration for Fr. Paul Desch OFM [Franciscan] at Holy Name Church in the Mt. Auburn neighborhood of Cincinnati. Fr. Paul is a wonderful man and a great priest and minister of the gospel. His church community is joyful, diverse, and a little left of orthodox (Thank God! Thank God!).

Fr. Paul Desch is 85 years old and his ten-year term as pastor is coming to an end. He has built up and maintained a lively community, absolutely infused with the Holy Spirit. Any Christian, no matter the denomination, and I think most non-Christians, would feel at home here. There is a healthy diversity present, black and white, new babies up to Miss Roberto, 101 years old. I met 2 physicians and their 3 children (Mr and Mrs. Rahner), parishioners who come a long way to attend this mass, talked to 3 members of a visiting choir from Munich Germany, and shook hands with and hugged about 20 members of Fr. Desch's family (who are now, by marriage of my daughter Emily to Fr. Paul's grand-nephew Brian Homan, my family). I am so happy to know this interesting, loving family and to have this little connection to Fr. Paul.

Here are some random thoughts about the event:

• the music seemed heavily influenced by African-American church music. The keyboardist, a large black fellow, was incredible, sometimes playing organ and piano simultaneously. His style was lively and fun. The choir was terrific.
• during the sermon, Fr. Paul mentioned how, when we leave church after mass every Sunday, we shouldn't feel like we had just left a funeral. I began to think how often I leave church feeling worse than when I came in. Life is too short for that. The church community should lift you up.
• Fr. Paul makes some modifications, on the fly, to the readings and the prescribed text of the mass. Not sure how conscious all of these modifications are, but they seem to humanize the mass and make it seem more like a communal supper and celebration than the old model of the the priest doing something mysterious and special for us. The mass is our celebration. It is community, communal.
• Fr. Paul's message and style is inclusive, forgiving, and welcoming. It is not the hate-infused message, the condemnations, the narrow-minded focus I have seen in some Catholic churches. Fr. Paul is a community builder and bridge builder.
• It is odd that it's often the older priests, those infused and informed by the ethos of the Second Vatican Council, that communicate this spirit. The older priests are much younger and more open-minded than many of the younger priests. How do you explain that?
• Fr. Paul loves to sing and song can break out at any time during mass. Before the reading of the gospel Lazarus story, Fr. Paul broke out into the old song "Dem Dry Bones." Later, we heard some singing in German, "Du, Du, Liegst Mir im Herzen"--"You, You, Are Deep in My Heart."
• At the end of the mass, Sister Liz extended her hand toward Fr. Paul (as we in the congregation did) and blessed him. Many people laid on hands in this blessing. We, non-priests, are as capable of giving a blessing as ordained priests. This was a wonderful final touch.
• I think the true church can be found everywhere (and, it often seems, nowhere). It is not just inside the walls of a Catholic church. It is often in the least expected places. And I found it in a church with very modest resources, with a small congregation, in the Mt. Auburn neighborhood of Cincinnati. Thank You!!

[Monday night, April 7th]

I just talked to my daughter Carolan (who lives in Whitefish, Montana, and works in Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness). She had been at Emily's wedding last summer when Fr. Paul Desch had the mass and officiated at the wedding. At that time Carolan remarked, "I feel as if that's the first time I've ever been to mass." Fr. Paul's mass celebrations can feel that different and that special.

Martin Luther King, Jr. My Memories of that day 46 years ago

[This is a reposting of a blog entry from years ago]

My roommate Brian Wilson and I got on a ferry boat at Piraeus, Greece, just outside of Athens the evening of April 4, 1968. We hadn't seen a newspaper in days and were far from any televisions or radios--blissfully cut off from the Vietnam slaughters and the American race wars. The ferry was heading overnight to Iraklion, a city on the northern coast of the island of Crete. It was a very crowded boat, not luxurious in any way (and that was fine with us). Overnight some of the Cretans were playing a wild music on some sort of folk instrument played with a bow. Brian Wilson met a girl on the boat from Eastlake, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb just miles from my home in Euclid. I actually knew some of her relatives and had shopped in her family's little clothing store in Euclid. A young mother in my quarters pulled out her breast in public and began nursing her baby. I was astonished beyond belief, never having seen anything like that back home. I slept a little that night in the crazy cacophony, in a setting where Zorba the Greek would have felt quite at home.

In the morning we arrived at port in Iraklion. We hitched a short ride up a hill on the back of a moped and then began walking. We had only a vague clue where we were headed. Somewhere we had heard a vague rumor about a place on the south central coast of the island where we could live free in caves. The place was called Matala, so we decided to head there. When we got out of Iraklion, we began hitchhiking. Unfortunately for us, there were hardly any cars at all on the roads. Finally a truck came by carrying a full load of gravel and stopped. The girl from Eastlake and I hopped into the cab, but there wasn't room for Brian and his guitar. The driver signalled for Brian to get up on the load of gravel, which he did. We began driving over the incredibly bad roads of Crete, occasionally passing by areas where the road had been utterly ruined by earthquakes. I passed the time trying to talk to the driver. I only knew a few words and phrases of Greek, but I discovered he spoke some German--apparently useful in Greece during the World War II era. And that's when he told me: that Martin Luther King had been murdered. His German was shaky enough that I wasn't sure exactly what he was telling me: that the king was dead, was shot. The driver was deadly serious about this and he certainly communicated to me that something very serious, very terrible, had happened.

We had a few more rides that day and walked a great deal. We walked right past one of the most historic archaeological sites in the world: "Phaistos," an ancient civilization, almost a birthplace of the world I lived in. The final 10 miles or so of our journey was on foot. There were no cars, no buses, and very primitive roads to Matala. I do remember one beautiful moment. A Greek man noticed Brian's guitar and invited us into his home. He spoke a little English and introduced us to his family, told us of relatives in America. He brought out his pride and joy, a magnificent bouzouki, one that must have cost him a year's wages, and played it for us. I took a photo of that scene, inside this Cretan house, the man holding his bouzouki, his wife and children by his side. About 4000 miles away in America, all hell had broken loose. The grim tide of blood and chaos that WB Yeats had spoken of had been unloosed. Evil and hatred had its day in America, while Brian and I were so blessed by this man and his family in Crete.

Accompanying the Dying

A couple nights ago, I woke in the middle of the night in a state of anxiety. A poem came to me and luckily I was able to remember it the next morning. I don't think the poem is just about me. In part I think it was about my Mom and my Dad and their deaths many years ago. But it is also about anyone who is dying and our responsibility (our opportunity) to accompany them--as far as we are able. Some people, those who work for hospice, do this every day. God Bless them!

Night Terror

Middle of night

I wake in a sweat,

heart pounding,

imagining my own death,

gripped by fear of what comes after

and terribly terribly lonely--

wishing someone would hold my hand

accompany me

as far as possible.

[Robert M. Coughlin / April 1, 2014]

Still Ice on Lake Erie on April 2nd

Spring is beginning in Northeast Ohio, but there is still plenty of ice on the Big Lake, as you can see in the photos below I took today from Mentor Beach Park. Geez, boating season will start next month--but look at it now!

Looking east from Mentor Beach Park

Looking north

Looking northwest from Mentor Beach Park

Short Memory Needed in Ohio's Snowbelt!

Short Memory Needed in Lake and Geauga Counties

Yesterday, the last day of March, the temperature soared

to 54 degrees in Chardon and first crocus appeared--

I forgot that the very day before, I slept through a blizzard

and woke to 5 inches of wet snow.

My late late winter short-term memory is short indeed,

a requirement to live in the Snowbelt of Ohio!

Bob Coughlin / April 1, 2014