This wonderful book by John Quinn contains a lot of unpublished material and two beautiful poems by his own hand, which celebrate my brother and mourn his passing. The section on “Dawn Mass” was an impromptu recording and just happened by chance—if there is such a thing! I think that if you can be present to the wonder of the heart, it always knows the secret and can lead us to the “where” and “when,” and then we introduce the “why” and call it “chance.” Thanks to John Quinn just being there, we have become witnesses to something magical.
The Eucharist was so special for John O’Donohue, and he had such a tremendous reverence and attraction towards Corcomroe Abbey in Clare. Here he led the most amazing “conversation in God” involving humans, nature and the dawn, in the presence of “the spirits of those who lived and prayed here for centuries.” It is a Eucharist of almost tangible healing and light. Then towards the end of his homily is that sentence that put everything in perspective:
We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously.
As you travel this Burren valley of John’s birth, the road meanders parallel to the river, guiding you out into the world as the river carries its blessing to the sea. Of course, just as the river enables the salmon to swim back up at their time, so too does the road take you back up away from it all, or as John used to say, “You can get in out of it.”
Either way, as you travel this path and you look up at the sides of the valley as they climb to the horizon, all you can see is barren limestone speckled with green. The mind wonders how life could be sustained here, but if you could be guided by the wonder of the heart and you took a chance to cross the wall (without knocking it!) and climb, you could be starting a pilgrimage. Hidden in the fissured face of the mountain are surprising shelves of green showing to the sky, which sustain and nourish the animals over the bleak winter. Here you can gaze and graze in these wondrous pastures and the conversation begins. In this awakening you realize that, having tasted the mountains, nibbling at the sides of the path will satisfy you no longer.
May we learn to return
And rest in the beauty
Of animal being,
Learn to lean low,
Leave our locked minds,
And with freed senses
Feel the earth
Breathing with us.
From “To Learn from Animal Being,” To Bless the Space Between Us
Pat O’Donohue
(John’s brother)
A letter from John O’Donohue to John Quinn on the passing of Quinn
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Blessings and extracts from To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue, published by Bantam Press, in 2007. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited. “Connemara in Our Mind,” “Gleninagh,” “November Questions” and “Cottage” by John O’Donohue are all taken from Echoes of Memory, published by Transworld Ireland. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited. “The Angel of the Bog” and “Thought-Work” by John O’Donohue are both taken from Conamara Blues, published by Bantam Press, in 2001. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited. John’s talk at the 1999 Céifin Conference originally appeared in Working Towards Balance: Our Society in the New Millennium (Céifin Conference Papers, 1999), published by Veritas in 2000. With thanks to the Céifin Conference. John’s interview with Suzanne Power, published in the Sunday Tribune in 2005, appears by kind permission of the author.
Lines from “Advent” and “Father Mat” by Patrick Kavanagh are reprinted from Collected Poems, edited by Antoinette Quinn (Allen Lane, 2004), by kind permission of the Trustees of the Estate of the late Katherine B. Kavanagh, through the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency. “I Go Among Trees and Sit Still” by Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997. Copyright © 1998 by Wendell Berry. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint. “The Art of Disappearing” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, copyright © 1995. Used with the permission of Far Corner Books, Portland, Oregon. Lines from Crossing Unmarked Snow by William Stafford, published by University of Michigan Press in 1998. Line from “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott, from Sea Grapes: Collected Poems 1948–1984, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1984. “Section: XIV” by Octavio Paz, translated by Eliot Weinberger, from Eagle or Sun?, copyright © 1969, 1970, 1975, 1976 by Octavio Paz and Eliot Weinberger. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
An extract from “The Journey—for John O’Donohue” by John Quinn originally appeared in his Moments (Veritas, 2011), and appears here in its entirety; “Envoi” by John Quinn appears here in print for the first time.
Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of the material produced in Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World. If any infringement has occurred, the owners of such copyright are requested to contact the publishers.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
John O’Donohue was a poet, philosopher and scholar, a native Gaelic speaker from County Clare, Ireland. He was awarded a PhD in philosophical theology from the University of Tübingen, with post-doctoral study of Meister Eckhart. John’s numerous international bestselling books—Anam Cara, Beauty, Eternal Echoes and the beloved To Bless the Space Between Us, among many others—guide readers through the landscape of the Irish imagination.
John Quinn is a former broadcaster with RTÉ Radio (Irish National Radio). An award-winning writer of children’s fiction, he has also authored/edited several other books, including an adult novel, two memoirs, and a number of books based on his radio work, notably Walking in Wonder. He lives in County Galway, Ireland.