SPREADING THE WORD

THE AUTHORISED HISTORY

The King James Version is the venerable granddaddy of Bible translations stretching all the way back to 1611. As part of the 400 th. Anniversary celebrations this drama/documentary, KJV ~ The Making of the King James Bible traces the origin of an historical project. This is a swashbuckling saga of an ailing Queen who names her successor with her dying breath, a solitary teenager steeped in Biblical and Calvinist thought ushered to the throne and a church divided by doctrinal and political intrigue. Against this turbulent background the idea for a new and scholarly translation of the Bible was hatched in the mind of the young King. Brilliantly narrated by John Rhys-Davies and under the masterful direction of Norman Stone (‘Shadowlands’), ‘KJV’ never flags as it unfolds this gripping story. Elisabeth’s successor, Scottish King, James VI had a keen sense of Divine providence over his life and the task of organising a new translation of the Scriptures became his life’s passion and subsequently his enduring legacy. In its scope and depth there had never been anything quite like it. Archaic though the language of the KJV may seem to modern readers, in its time it was cutting edge and innovative. This presentation helps us to appreciate what a milestone that enterprise represented.

Gerard O'Shea

This review appears in the current edition of VOX magazine

BOB AT THOMOND PARK

DYLAN OUTSHINES SUN

The omens weren’t good leading up to the day. A duo playing at the Strand hotel on the eve of the gig assiduously avoided any music by the man and when a request for same was shouted up by a member of the audience the reply was arrogance and smart alec-ism personified, “ Yeah if you want to hear him he’s playing in Thomond Park tomorrow” Later in more contrite mode he elaborated, “I was actually going to do some Dylan tonight but I left it at home”. What he left at home wasn’t exactly clear, presumably the lyrics ! Hard to think that any musician worthy of the name could not rustle up a few bars of ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ off the top of his head ! Later I met a mother and daughter who had travelled from Leeds just to see Bob Dylan perform the last engagement of his European tour at Thomond Park here in Limerick city. The mam was a die hard fan and daughter a regular Glastonbury head and aspiring Dylan fan, this was a sort of musical coming-of-age pilgrimage for her.

Sunday 4 th of July dawned grey and windy, more Autumn than Summer and once again the omens were looking less that favourable. Mags and I walked the short distance from Ardhu to the rugby ground joining a trickle of people on the same mission and took our seats on the East Sand. Our tickets were for the West stand but that was closed off, presumably because ticket sales had been less than anticipated. A stiff westerly wind tore through the Stand as proceedings kicked off with local band ‘The Last Days of Death Country’ whose lead singer comes from Pallaskenry, Mags’ neck of the woods. They played their hearts out to a small but enthusiastic band of supporters who had gathered on the pitch just in front of the stage. They sounded fresh and energetic and I would definitely like to hear them again. Despite the biting cold weather the onset of the music lifted the spirits and for the first time I thought this could be a cracker! Next on stage was ‘Aabama 3’ ,who were superb with their rap/hip hop collection and more than a few Gospel references thrown in. Great soulfull anthems to warm the body and bless the soul. ‘Seasick Steve’ was up next and rocked the stage with old time Blues riffs and down home spun philosophy. With just a drummer he rocked the crowd and produced a startlingly full sound that filled the stadium. Al the while the weather was blowing hot and cold with clouds clearing for spasmodic bursts of sunshine and the threat of rain always imminent.

David Gray then did his thing, and I must confess his performance left me cold and was the only dud note in the musical line up of the day. At around 8 pm every seat had been occupied and the stage side crowd had swelled as Bob Dylan entered the arena. The sun that had been playing hide and seek all afternoon now shone brilliantly making it difficult to see the band on stage, using the hand as a shield one could just about make out the black suited troubadour complete with a beige coloured trilby. While visually the sun dipping into the West almost obliterated the view of Bob, acoustically the 69 year old songster dominated the stadium with his distinctive raspy voice and arresting lyrics. And it seemed that Mr Dylan was in good form. As he sang for nearly two hours and reprieved many of his old classics like, ‘Blowin In The Wind’, ‘Lay Lady Lay’ and a somewhat changed version of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’. He wasn’t in a hurry to leave and responded to an ovation by the 18.000 crowd to return and sing another handful of songs. This was a great performance by the song master and it was heartening for an oldster like me to see the generous mix of youth and age gathered together to soak in the living musical legend that is Bob Dylan. What finer way to spend American Independence Day than with one of her finest sons.

Gerard O'Shea

P.S....For those of you who have to know here is the full list of songs performed on the evening...

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Lay, Lady, Lay
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Just Like A Woman
Beyond Here Lies Nothin'
Tangled Up In Blue
Rollin' And Tumblin'
Tryin' To Get To Heaven
Cold Irons Bound
Love Sick
Highway 61 Revisited
Workingman's Blues #2
Thunder On The Mountain
Ballad Of A Thin Man
Like A Rolling Stone
I Feel A Change Comin' On
Jolene
Blowin' In The Wind

PASSING OVER

ANOTHER WORLD

A 20 year old soldier dies in an Army hospital and after nine minutes he returns to life, ‘Return from Tomorrow’ recounts what he experienced during that time and how it changed his life forever. There are a multitude of books on so called ‘near death’ experiences most of which present a largely positive outcome in the hereafter, approaching a great light etc,. This book strikes me as something different as the soldier, George G. Ritchie records the horrors as well as the blessings of a life beyond this one. There is an authentic feel to his tale not only in the matter-of-fact telling of it, but in the tangible positive change that the experience left on Ritchie for the remainder of his long life. On one level ‘Return from Tomorrow’ can be seen as a parable in the mould of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ where the miserable Ebeneezer is given a glimpse of a past, present and future that terrifies the miser into a reformation of his life, however the events of Ritchie’s story are narrated as actual events that are rooted in real time and history. Also unlike Dickens work Jesus is referred to explicitly as the young man’s guide through the realms of the next world, and the reassurance of His presence is the constant throughout the account.

George G. Ritchie chairman of the Department of Psychiatry of Towers hospital began his career after military service as a medical doctor. He frames his extraordinary story around a consultation with patient, Fred Hoyle (not his real name) who had been experiencing acute depression after childhood abuse and a variety of other ‘hard’ life experiences. After five sessions where much progress had been made in helping Fred to confront his past difficulties he is given the diagnosis of lung cancer with only four months left to live. He turns angrily to Ritchie, “ What a joke , huh Doc ? All this digging around in the past so I can do better in the future - only now I’m not going to have a future…all a waste of time now, huh ? .”
The psychiatrist told him, “ On the contrary, these things are more urgent now than they’ve ever been. Your future depends more on how swiftly you get on with the business of relationships now than ever.”
The future he has in mind is Fred’s (and ours) long term eternal future to which as a young man he had been given a unique insight. Over several more meetings he shares in stunning detail the extent of his youthful nine minute excursion through the realms of the dead, and the enduring lessons that were etched in his psyche through this memorable experience. One of the practises that helped Ritchie make sense of his otherworldly experience was a renewed interest in the systematic reading of the Bible and he observed, “ I understood at last where the certainty had come from, in His presence, that I was not condemned , in spite of my ugly actions I had committed that were paraded in plain view before us. It was His death, I came to see, that had already paid for these things, the light of His resurrection in which we stood.” That’s as good a conclusion as one could hope for when discussing such a controversial and mysterious a subject as ‘life after death’, and it this solid Biblical grounding that saves the story from descending into a morass of subjective speculation and fanciful conjecture. I raced through this book as it is truly breathtaking and I, at least, have read nothing quite like it.

Gerard O'Shea

You can purchase 'Return from Tomorrow' post free at thebookdepository.com

DYLAN'S HEARTFELT CHRISTMAS

TIMES ARE A CHANGIN'

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Already the air is beginning to fill with sounds seasonal as stores belt out their well worn Christmas soundtracks and even some of the local radio stations have dared to spin the occasional Yuletide ditty. Gone are the days when Christmas music belonged exclusively to the festivity itself, now the jingle jangle of reindeers, sleigh-bells and gathering angels are used to extend the shopping extravaganza way beyond even the month of December.


I must admit that I am a sucker for Christmas carols and there are a few Christmas cracker songs that also rock my sledge, like John and Yoko’s 'Happy Christmas, War Is Over’ and Jona Lewie’s ‘Don’t Stop The Cavalry’ and of course Jackson Browne’s ‘The Rebel Jesus’. ‘Oh Holy Night’, ’ Adeste Fideles’ and ‘The Coventry Carol’ would be my top three carols whose musical light burst through the morass of woolly thinking and mulled-wine-filled days that are part and parcel of this ambiguous festival. As an avid collector of Christmas albums from the Muppets to Mario Lanza I was excited to hear that my venerable musical icon Bob Dylan has this year ,surprise, surprise ,released his very own addition to this musical genre, ‘Christmas In The Heart’.


As I write I am listening to Dylan’s seasonal offering and a very upbeat, Pogueish version of ‘Must Be Santa’. Already I have heard a jaunty Dylanesque rendition of ‘Here Comes Santa Clause’ and a scratchy sky stretching ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’. Now he is singing ‘The First Noel’ as no one else can, punctuating the powerful lyrics of the old hymn in that distinctive drawl “ The first Noel the angel did say / Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay; / In fields as they lay, keeping their sheep, / On a cold winter's night that was so deep. / Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, Born is the King of Israel. “ Such is the potency of that voice that old favourites like ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ and ‘Silver Bells’ lose their familiar banality and are endued with a freshness and immediacy that present those ancient and hallowed themes in an arresting and different way. Anyway Bob could sing the telephone directory and attach a gravitas to it with the awesome quality of his singing that has droned and sometimes hollered over the last five decades. The album is very much a traditional package with a Victorian painting of a lady and driver being pulled through the snow on a sledge with two horses on the cover, and a night scene of the Magi following the star on the back. Inside there is the slightly mischievous picture of a smiling brunette beauty posing in a Santa suit ! Whatever about the red suit with the fur trimmed collar this album should have pride of place in any stocking hung over the yuletide hearth this year.

Gerard O'Shea

U2 ON THE LINE

A Youthful U2

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PUSHING THE 'HOPE' BOUNDARY

A new album from U2 has by now (their 12 th,) become something of a global event as the Dublin based group have withstood the vicissitudes of the pop/rock industry better than most. For three decades Bono, Larry, Adam and the Edge have played together in a band and have produced some of the most sublime and uplifting music in that often over hyped and tedious genre. What makes the output of U2 tower above their contemporaries is the positivism and spirituality of their songs along with the dramatic and often anthemic quality of the music. The individual band members attitude to the whole business is also refreshingly frank and lacking in the breathtaking arrogance often associated with so called super group Rock stars. As to their new album ‘No Line On The Horizon’ on first hearing there are two stand-out tracks, ‘Magnificent’ and ‘Moment of Surrender’ both of which contain the teasing ambiguity of some of U2’s finest. In ‘Magnificent’ Bono in a Psalmic mode cries out “ I was born to sing for you / I didn’t have a choice / But to lift you up / And sing whatever song you wanted me to / I give you back my voice / From the womb my first cry / It was a joyful noise”. He is one of the few top performers today who can in a largely secular world ,get away with writing such explicitly faith based lyrics , largely I think because no one doubts that these are emotions strongly and sincerely held. The strength of U2 and probably the cohesive force that has kept them together for so long is their shared Christian experience, from those early Charismatic Prayer meetings of their adolescence right up to Bono’s continuing campaigning for third world debt cancellation and marshaling of heads of state to combat poverty in Africa. Adam to my knowledge does not share the bands Christian beliefs but obviously their friendship over the years has forged bonds on different levels.

Bono's on his knees again !

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On ‘Moment of Surrender’ Bono sings “At the moment of surrender / I folded to my knees / I did not notice the passers-by / And they did not notice me.” In fact on stage Bono spends a good deal of time on his knees, one suspects as a homage to the King and indicative of where the singer sees himself in the scheme of things. Bono’s ego seems of gigantic proportions as he struts about the stage and with almost prophetic urgency delivers the U2 repertoire to rapt concert goers, but he is most aware of the pitfalls of living the rock and roll lie. Recently in an interview with the Irish Times he recounted meeting someone at a party, “This guy, who I thought sort of liked me, came over to me and starting telling me what a ****** I was and how much he hated me, and how he had always hated me right from the very start.” The Edge arrives and says: “That’s no way for U2’s drummer to be talking to you.” The yin and yang of U2 look at each other and dissolve into laughter. Whatever about on a personal level Bruce Springsteen once observed on Bono the artist, “"His voice is shot through with self-doubt. The constant questioning in Bono's voice is where the band stakes its claim to its humanity and declares its commonality with us: 'Here we are, Lord, this mess, in your image.'" Maybe it’s this vulnerability coupled with their acknowledgement that this isn’t all there is, that make U2 such an indispensable voice in these recessionary and gloom ridden times.

The boys lash it out under the Lincoln

Memorial at Barack Obama's Inauguration

Certainly in this country at this time our staple news diet is full of dire economic predictions, job losses and pay cuts so much so that many people I know have stopped listening to the daily news, for them could I suggest replacing the audio void with large helpings of ‘No Line On The Horizon’ or in fact any of U2’s previous dozen offerings over the last 30 years. The Celtic Tiger generation may at last realise that they still haven’t found what they’re looking for, and perhaps there’s more to this ‘Kingdom come’ business than meets the eye ! John Waters in his review of the new album enthuses “With No Line On The Horizon, they have achieved something that, oddly, stands with one leg in the shallow, concentrate-version of U2 that the world has taken at face value for a decade, and one leg in a future as exciting as anything they have hitherto allowed us to glimpse. If, as we have previously noted, music is prophetic as to the drift of wider reality, then this album may be the most hopeful thing you will hear all year.” And ‘hope’ is the one commodity that they don’t deal on the Stock Exchange, so grab it while it’s flying and let the music lift you higher !
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Gerard O'Shea

BRIDESHEAD LIVES

Charles, Julia and Sebastian stepping it out in Venice

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THE HOUSE OF FLYTE

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I went to see a preview showing of the new cinema version of Brideshead Revisited during the week. Courtesy of local newspaper ‘The Post’ I was part of the audience at the Crescent Omniplex to see the films first Irish outing. The costume designer for the Julian Jarrold directed movie is local girl Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh who attended the screening and gave an insight into her craft during a question and answer session afterwards. She has previously teamed up with Jarrold in ‘Becoming Jane’ (2007) and has also worked with directors Jim Sheridan and Neil Jordan. The costumes were hand made and her vibrant pallet of colour and contrasting textures combined to create an authentic 1920’s English look.
Evelyn Waugh’s novel was previously serialised for television in the lavish Granada T.V. production of 1981.My vivid memory of that series was the brilliant music score composed by Geoffrey Burgon, especially the opening theme played on a Baroque trumpet. The Miramax film version condenses into two hours the essence of Waugh’s tale and remains true to the spirit if not the letter of the original. Visually stunning with acting, locations and of course costume design all impeccably executed, the film rolls along at a steady pace keeping the viewer on board throughout. The towering presence is the house itself which in fact is the same one used in the earlier t.v. version, and attached to it is the fate of the Flyte family who live under the iron grip of their staunchly Catholic mother,Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson).Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) narrates the tale from his first meeting at Oxford with Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishlaw) to his romantic involvement with the beautiful Julia (Hayley Atwell) and his recurring obsession with Brideshead.
Beyond the human drama there seems to be a strong emphasis in the early part of the story on the irrationality and indeed hypocrisy of religious faith from Ryder’s point of view. However by the end, that faith seems to be the one constant that has survived all the tumults and twists of the family’s history. The mother dominates every aspect of her children’s lives being obsessed with their religious salvation and their adherence to the catholic faith in particular. She is intent that Julia will only marry a catholic and firmly brushes aside Charles advances towards her daughter as he is not even a believer ! Her other concern is for Sebastians alcoholism and homosexual lifestyle, a consideration which becomes a source of conflict between her and Charles, who holds a liberal view on such things.
Waugh was in no doubt as to the theme of his work when he published it in 1945, as he commented that Brideshead Revisited “deals with what is the obliquely termed ‘the operation of the Grace’, that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to himself ”. In the final scene of the film Charles Ryder now an army captain, returns to Brideshead and visit’s the family chapel. A solitary candle is burning before the altar, he cradles the flame between his thumb and forefinger as though to quench it. His fingers never meet,the flame is undisturbed, he walks away. The flicker of the candle flame is like the frail glow of faith, which though apparently weak and fragile is capable of lighting up a dark place! That’s a truth worth remembering and I left the cinema last Monday with that one single image etched in my mind. Not a bad return for a trip to the movies.

Gerard O'Shea