OPINION (AN COLÚN): Misplaced hero worship, a good ethos and Gurteen's positive future

GURTEEN Agricultural College is celebrating 75 years of providing a vital service to rural Ireland this year and on Sunday evening, June the 25th, a large gathering came together in the college's sports hall for a Service of Thanksgiving. I was singing at the event along with 25 members of the Birr Choral Society and Cloughjordan Community Choir and it was a real pleasure being part of this special community event.
I think a sense of community is part of our defensive system against the ruthless, competitive and individualistic instincts of our capitalistic age.
As well as this sense of community there was also a feeling that we were experiencing the welcoming and warm-hearted aspect of Christianity. The love and compassion at the heart of Christianity's message is its greatest gift to the world. It's an antidote to the regular sensation that the world is going to hell in a handcart. This decent side of the religion began immediately in the service when we were warmly greeted by the Chaplain of the College, Rev Steven Foster.
Rev Foster welcomed the former students who were present. He said there was a student present who had attended the college in 1954. He had also seen two students from the mid 1950s who had recognised one another and embraced each other. It had been wonderful to see, he said.
As he spoke I thought of my own school reunions when I met, after a gap of many years, old friends, some of whom had been like brothers to me during my schooldays. As the Reverend spoke, no doubt many of us present were experiencing memories of our student days or were feeling nostalgic for our youth.
They say that if you do feel nostalgic for your childhood or youth it can mean that you are feeling exhausted from the current situation in your life and want to return to a simpler, less difficult time.
After Rev Foster's welcome everyone then burst into song for the first hymn, “Praise my soul, the King of Heaven.” The words of this hymn are a free paraphrase of Psalm 103, which has much to teach us because it is a prayer of thanksgiving. Faced with the evil and greed of others, faced with injustice, with the frailties of our bodies and minds, it is no surprise that we fall into despair. But the Psalms again and again lift us out of this mood of depression. I'm reminded of the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke's childhood was very tough. His mother locked him in the attic for long periods of time and he was sent to a military school, an environment which was totally unsuitable for his sensitive nature. Yet, in spite of these, and other, experiences of suffering he still regularly ascended to feelings of thanksgiving. He wonderfully expressed this expansive mood with these lines of poetry:
“Oh, tell us poet, what do you do?
I praise.
But the deadly and the violent days, how do you undergo them, take them in?
I praise.
But the namelessness - how do you raise that, invoke the unnameable?
I praise.”
In other words, we suffer terribly, we grieve terribly, and then praise emerges in our hearts again; and we begin to mumble beautiful words of poetry or prayer.
Some people say, look at the world and its suffering - how could a God create such a universe and yet still be considered a benevolent God? Rilke says to them, That's a nonsense. Just praise, praise praise. He called this concept, “dennoch preisen” - “praising life in spite of everything”.
During the service in Gurteen Rev Dr Laurence Graham spoke about the belief system in the Methodist Church, which traces its roots back to that untiring and extraordinary man John Wesley in the 18th Century. Wesley was a man who felt religion had become a bit stale and it needed rejuvenation, fresh thinking and enthusiasm. Driven by this vision he travelled quarter of a million miles around Britain and Ireland on horseback preaching everywhere (no place was considered too lowly to preach) to all people (no one was excluded from the idea that we are all sons and daughters of God and we are all loved by God). Wesley preached good news for all our souls, a message which could refresh every part of a person's life.
Wesley's final words, on his death bed, were, “The best of all is, God is with us.”
After the service a choir member lent me a copy of a book published in 1972. It's called “Gurteen College - A Venture of Faith” and was excellently written by Rev J Wesley McKinney and Salters Sterling. I'm half way through the book and am finding it fascinating. It has many striking passages. For example, there's this: “At Gurteen there has never been a restricted entry to the College based on academic attainment. At a time when the passing of examinations has become so prominent a part of the evaluation of a person we have defied this development. Our only basis for the judgement of a person is his or her desire to study agriculture or rural domestic science. The consequences of this approach do not make for an easy life in the classroom. However, they do have untold rewards in other ways. We are thrilled to see young people discover their dignity and worth in an atmosphere which does not hero worship the intellect. People whose previous experience of school has caused them to despair become new creatures over-night.” In 2023 we have much to learn from these words written 51 years ago.