eventide

sun sets on the sky

nothing now of the war that is to be

but the odour of the musk rose

the night bird winging by

a little peace

me

sun sets on the sky

not now the omens as before

but the artistry of heaven

Lord stay this war

give another chance to your children

all dogs go to heaven

 

All Dogs Go To Heaven is the name of a cartoon film that came out some years ago.

I've never seen it but the title has a certain je ne sais quoi.

I thought of it this week when I encountered a broadcast by loopy internet nun Mother Miriam in which she appeared to suggest animals can't go to heaven.

By loopy I mean heroic by the way.

I use the terms loopy and heroic interchangeably for nuns,

And I'm not far wrong.

But the heaven business,

Mother Miriam quoted someone who had said dogs could go to heaven only if they were capable of accepting Jesus into their hearts.

Mother M commented: "Obviously dogs can't do that."

I'm not sure how she could know this.

Ive been acquainted with some charaacterful dogs from Paddy Pup to Glen to various Jesses, a Pancho, a Mad Max, a Mollie and sundry others.

I always theought they praised God by their very being.

They certainly made me feel like praising God for their very being.

Maybe Mother M should have a word with Saint Francis Of Asissi who tradition records used to preach to the birds telling them how much God loved them as evidenced by their beauty and perfect form and blissful flying and comfy nests and so on.

The question of animals going to heaven has interested me since childhood.

I always wanted them to be there.

When I was young I read a James Herriot vet book where an old lady was sad and asked the vet if her dogs would go to heaven and James Herriot told her: "I believe any creature that can love can go heaven and nobody who has seen your dogs could doubt that they love you."

I like the cut of James Herriot's jib.

Since heaven was made for man  (that is to say for me) and I want animals to be there maybe the greatness of God encompasses this.

In truth I cannot set any limit to his greatnesss or love or generosity.

I mean there can be no suggestion that God would not be able to give animals eternal souls.

If I can believe human beings have eternal souls why not the animals!

The real challenge is to believe in eternal life for me,

Once I believe that men have eternal souls, the rest follows easily.

God seems to have given human beings many lessons through the animals.

Sometimes kids with autism walk free of it simply through the love a a family dog.

I've seen the loneliness of elderly people made as nothing when they saw my dogs coming up the avenue.

There's bits in the Bible where Jesus says: "Look at the birds flying south for the winter. I tell you not one of them drops from the sky without your Father In Heaven knowing."

He also says: "Look at the sparrows which are sold two a penny in the market place. Not one of them is unknown to the Father."

If God knows every single sparrow on earth, I would hazard maybe the sparrows have souls.

There's a bit in the Old Testament Book Of Job where is complaining to God for not smiting a city after God had compelled Job to prophecy its destruction. And the book records God as saying: "Why would you want me to destroy it? Many people live there and much cattle."

If God cares about the cattle in this way, well maybe baby, maybe they have souls.

I would contend that when God makes something it has an eternal quality to it.

Even atheistic scientists suggest that the phyical substances we encounter in the universe are indestructible, ie that we can neither create matter nor destroy it. They say the same thing about energy,

If God has put lasting qualities into matter and energy how much more so may he have done so with the spirits of living creatures.

A long time ago a revered friend said to me on this subject: "Jesus did not die for dogs."

I replied: "But his death has redeemed the whole creation."

A few nights ago I was asking God to send me sweet dreams intead of the usual joyless ones I get.

I dreamed that night that my deceased Uncle Scutch had come to me. He'd brought one of my old dogs, Pancho, with him,

I was quite delighted by the whole thing.

No disrespect to the Uncle but the fact that he brought Pancho really crowned it.

God has given the animals dignity and made it a crime for any of us to deliberately mistreat them. He teaches us lessons through them about love and life and helping each other. I feel that there are great scientific discoveries waiting to be found through animals but they won't be found by torturing them in laboratories.

Through loving insight, wisdom and observation of what is before our eyes, we may yet find ways through the animals to heal mental pain, cancers, dementia and other forms of suffering.

The animals praise God with their voices and their goodness and their work and their companionability and by their very being.

Listen to the birds' dawn chorus or their evening serenade.

They are rejoicing in God's glory.

I think they go to heaven.

when the revolution was expected in china

 

in the garden of my father

i first heard the gunshots from Tiananmen Square

i will never drink again this beauty

without hearing first the crying of the dying there

we'll pray sometimes in the evenings

as the shadows lengthen into years

for there are prayers much softer than silence

and silences softer than tears

june bugs

 

"Hamas have thanked Simon Harris for recognising Palestine," chirped Aunty Teresa.

Her sister Aunty Anne, an enthusiastic participant in pro Palestinian marches, eyed me warily and then said with some determination: "Oh that's yesterdays news."

I thought she was cutting me some slack and I accepted it gratefully.

But I was thinking: What a proud day for teen prodigy Prime Minister Simon Harris and for Ireland, receiving the thanks of the October Seventh eye gougers and torture murderers,

Later that proud day I found myself with Padre Baines,

He made coffee and enquired: "What do you make of the situation in the Middle East?"

I told him: "I start with theology when I'm talking to you. The Israelis are in the holy land because God wants them there. The reason the devil hates them so much throughout history is that God has used them to make himself known to humanity."

"In what sense?" wondered the priest.

"In the sense intended by Jesus when he said: "Salvation comes from the Jews."

"Where did Jesus say that?"

"To the woman at the well as described by the Gospel witness John in chapter four of his gospel."

"They're committing war crimes," rejoined the Padre. "40,000 people killed."

"Olay. Firstly I would counsel you to remember the warnings of Saint Paul. Has God changed his mind about his choice of the Jews? Out of the question. Do not be arrogant towards the Jews. For they are a cultivated olive. If some of them refusing Jesus meant I came to you with the good news, what will their acceptance mean? I tell you nothing less than life from the dead. If God has been hard on the Jews who are a cultivated olive, how much harder will he be on you who are a wild olive grafted on to their promises if you despise his holy people."

"Did Saint Paul really say that? Where did you get your quotations?"

"The Letter to the Romans."

"Some holy people," and he reiterated: "Forty thousand deaths."

"Well," I said, "I don't want to quibble. Any deaths would offend me. But your figures are from Hamas. I suppose they'd lie just for the sake of it. Make up a figure, double it, and double it again.  That's how they work. Do you remember you told me the Israelis had machine gunned their own people from helicopters at the pop concert? That was debunked by France 24 an anti Israeli channel. Do you remember Hamas claiming the Israelis blew up five hundred people at a hospital? That was debunked when tape emerged of the Palestinian bombers themselves saying: "That bomb was one of our own." The real figure from the Palestinians own bomb was fifty dead. But I think I would have trouble justifying any of the deaths and injuries that occur in war. A consideration of the fire bombing of Dresden or the raids on Cologne leaves me floundering. But I still don't say the Brits and the Americans should have let the Nazis win. Or that they should have let the Russian communists win the Cold War."

"There's still an awful lot of  innocent people suffering in Gaza," said the Padre.

"Not quite up to Sudanese levels though is it?" I repliqued. "Five million dead in Sudan over a half century of my lifttime. And the killing has never stopped for the full fifty years. Another four million dead in the Congo in the last twenty years. Why on earth is Gaza even on our TV screens with these African spree killings still going on? Not to mention the Azerbaijani Muslims expulsion of a hundred thousand Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh. Or Putin's smash and grab on Ukraine."

"James, Gaza is a prison. No one can leave. That's why it's so different."

"Padre, we had a coffee morning in Kilcullen in aid of Gaza last week. Organised by the usual clapped out lefty handwringers from Amnesty International circa 1985. The same eejits who were championing the Sandinista communist dictatorship in Nicaragua when I was a teenager. Hilariously the same Sandinista communist dictator Danilo Ortega De Saavedra whom they advocated in the 1980s is still ruling Nicaragua today. It's been a while since the handwringers of 1985 said anything about Nicaragua good, bad or indifferent. I suppose they stopped caring once they'd successfully installed a murderous atheistic Marxian dictatorship. And this week those same wearisome Kilcullen handwringsers were joined at their coffee morning by one very recently arrived Palestinian refugee from Gaza whining about how terrible the Israelis are. He'd purportedly left the Gaza Strip after Gaza attacked Israel last October. So it's not a prison in any real sense. People are going in and out and moving to Ireland at will. And he's here in Kilcullen already. Isn't that great for Ireland? That the drug dealing child abusing people trafficking IRA mafia has such efficient immigration rat lines directly from here to the Gaza strip? Marvellous. What could possibly go wrong? Incidentally do you think the five million dead Sudanese were not in a prison in a truer sense than the Gazans? I mean the Sudanese didn't invade or eye gouge or rape or toture murder their neighbours or indeed anybody. Do you think they just hung around for fifty years while their Islamist government murdered them because Sudan is such an easy place to leave?"

"A lot of Irish people don't agree with you. Our government has recognised Palestine."

"For me that raises the question of who governs Ireland. Our government is absolutely terrified of the Muslim immigrant population who are currently erecting organised tent cities for illegal immigrants in Dublin to test what the State will tolerate.. Teenage Prime Minister Simon Harris is feeding the crocodile hoping it will eat him last,.You may be sure he's quite aware that earlier this year British Justice Minister Mike Freer resigned after death threats from  pro Palestinian Muslim terrorists. Simon Harris doesn't have the stomach for that sort of thing. And a lot of Irish people do agree with me. You saw the public phone in vote for Israel in the Eurovision song contest. The only country we gave higher marks to was Croatia."

It was a ripe conversation with frankness on both sides.

Most advocates for the Palestinians are unable to accept any opposition to their views but Padre Baines is different,

He can take it as well as dish it out.

"Have I changed your mind on anything?" I asked him after two hours.

"No," he said.

And that very night back at the old chateau, by an odd coincidence there was a phone call from another retired priest.

"James," said Father Fortescue, for it was he, "I really must have an answer. Are you still supporting Israel? I want a yes or no."

"Now Martin," I said, "I have never described myself to you as supporting Israel. The last time you phoned you didn't listen long enough to hear my opinions. You hung up, do you remember?"

"Just tell me where you stand. Are you Pro Palestine like me or Pro Israel."

"I do not describe myself in those terms."

"Give me a plain yes or no to a plain question."

"Father you can't ask the question and answer it as well. I'd love to talk to you about these things over coffee. But there has to be a willingness to listen on both sides."

"I am asking you James for a simple answer. Are you Pro Israel or Pro Palestine? Give me a straight answer."

"You know in the Old Testament Jacob wrestles an angel at night not knowing he's an angel. The angel says to him in the morning: 'You will be called Israel beccause you have contended with the divine and with humanity, and you have prevailed." And when Joshua met an angel outside the walls of Jericho he asked the angel: 'Are you for us or for our enemies.?' The angel replied: "Neither." He didn't give a pigeon hole answer. It was impossible to say whose side he was on. He then identified himself thusly to Joshua: 'I am the captain of God's army.'"

"James what are you talking about?"

"I am teaching you the Catholic faith which you do not know."

When he had gone I went outside with the dogs, invoked the protection of the Blessed Mother and climbed a ladder to begin clearing weeds and dirt from the roof gutters.

I invoked the BVM gentle readers because as many of you know, I am a bit of a klutz and there are few men more likely than me to fall off a ladder once I climb one.

The sun kissed the garden as me n the doggies worked.

There was a blissful stillness over the heartland of County Kildare.

Roses were blooming along with a fine profusion of that white flower we call Snow In Summer and which my neurotic Aunty Teresa insists must not be called Summer Snow.

The scent of lilac was everywhere.

I paused from my exertions atop the ladder.

A little breeze dusked through the lengthening evening shadows  in the garden of my father.

From afar it seemed I could hear ever so faintly the guns of August.