Photo was taken at Muckross Traditional Farm, Killarney, Co.Kerry

A reminder of summer days and getting ready to thatch an old farmhouse cottage on Muckross Traditional Farm.

Thought on Sunday – November – 07/11/2010

The following reflection is by Tom Cahill

One thing can be said about life: it never ceases to amaze. Take, for example, a decade-long ocean census completed early this year. It uncovered a whole new world of a billion marine microbes. That’s an incredible 50,000 times more microbes than were known to exist before the census. How much more of life’s largesse do we short-change, I wonder.

Do we short-change life’s extravagance even in the case of human beings, particularly when a person’s earthly life has come to an end? How many are tempted to think, ‘Well that’s that!’ Finito! The Jewish sect in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 20:27-38) holds such a view. The Sadducees don’t believe in life after death. For them there is no such thing as bodily resurrection. Today, lots of people think that way too, or would claim they do. But that’s such a bleak outlook to have!


Even were it true, I’d still crave some comfort, even that of delusion, to face the abyss of oblivion. Let delusion cushion the icy impact of eternal emptiness and the sickening thrust of a risible freedom that leads nowhere and to nothing. In such a case one might as well be a robot as a human being. So much of what we experience each day tells us that life is not a trickster. It tells us that we are players in a drama, not a farce. We can trust our intuitions, our insights and our feelings. There’s more ways to truth than through scientific observation and logical reasoning. Let’s never forget our gut.