The rhythm in routine and ritual

It was a bright clear morning as I walked to the little chapel at Creevelea in the foothills of County Leitrim. The rising sun shimmered on the top of frost coated hedges neatly trimmed all along the road I walked to say half nine mass.

Mary Dolan passed me in her brown Volkswagen Beetle, nearly driving off the road into Gallagher’s bottoms with the effort it took to hoot her horn in salute. She had a little shop on the edge of Drumkeeran, selling all the basics that sat on shelves behind the counter, no cash register or calculator, only a little red book and a bell above the door.

The blue tits and robins were fine form that morning for singing, flitting from one side of the road to the next - poised to take full advantage of a passing spill of meal that was apt to happen as farmers foddered Charolais sucklers in the weeks of Spring to come.

Mrs Wynne, the retired teacher, passed by in her Toyota starlet with a polite raise of the hand, not too enamoured, as she peered into the side mirror in her passing, at the local curate wearing runners on his way to say the Holy Mass. Little did she know, he had a pair of black shoes put by in the sacristy, whose flat roof was letting in water.

The noise of Johnny McGahey’s 35 could be heard coming a half a mile of the road behind.

I always knew I was cutting it fine when I heard him giving the throttle welly and, if I didn’t speed up before he caught me, Mrs Wynne would be looking at the clock as I genuflected, to let me know with a little cough of my tardiness yet again.

For Johnny was apt, as he often did to bring her down the gears, pulling the handle of the throttle down when he met me along the road, talking away to his hearts' content while time for him stood still. He tended to forget the load he carried on the link box behind, for each and every morn he picked up an old man Frank Magee, who was all of 99 years, from the little Portacabin in which he dwelt.

Johnny was never in a hurry and couldn’t see how any man was, ‘God made time and oceans of it’, living like Frank in a demountable dwelling with bits of engines and round bales of silage piled up at his door - all for his convenience. He wore a hat and smoked a pipe and several coats in tatters from all the times he caught them in barbed wire fencing, but he loved to talk and would ceili every day in the kitchen of Peggy Horan’s Post Office where he dined on the freshest ham and mustard sandwiches.

Indeed I enjoyed getting in with Johnny but, on those mornings before weekday mass with only two minutes to spare to change my runners and throw on the robes, and Mrs Wynne looking to the clock (that I had changed previously to five minutes slow), the last person I wanted to get in with was Johnny McGahey.

But as I quickened my step he upped the gear as the exhaust of the ‘35 shook and there he caught up with me as I approached the gate of the Chapel and the link box lowered as he turned the key to spare the diesel and, unbeknownst to him, Frank was sitting next the ground.

‘Well Father, I’m glad I caught up with ya before ya got in to say mass for I want ya to pray for the crows!’.

‘The crows, Johnny?’

‘Aye the crows … for de ya know the old people always said … isn’t that right Frank’ (who was by now struggling to get up off the ground) the crows always go to build their nests on the very first day of March and de ya know, if the day is fine and ya meet a crow with a stick in its mouth, well it’s an odious sign for the year to come, so Father when you’re above at the altar, now with all your heart and all your might, implore the good Lord up there to make sure he gets them crows out to build their nest for it’ll be a quare ease for me for all the year to come.’

So, as I helped poor Frank off the ground and hurried in, I met with the customary cough at half past nine, which was in fact twenty five minutes to and I prayed that the crows might build their nests as Johnny sat outside smoking his pipe and waiting to leave Frank home after morning mass was said.

And so it is that every year since, on the first of March, I think about Johnny as I watch for the crows to build their nests and have come to learn that therein the crows teach a lesson; for ritual and routine are important in life, doing the same things, perhaps in a similar way, time and time and time again, year after year, after year.

For it gives a rhythm to our ordinary lives like the beat of a Lambeg drum and those who live rhythmically, be it in planting and growing, praying and sowing are among those who live the longest. For, in a life lived by rhythm, we find ease of mind in the surety of knowing of what each season will bring.

In the midst of an ever changing world we need touchstones throughout the year that bring certainty. Think on those in monastic settings whose days are governed by prayer and work, 'ora et labora’ and who for the most part live their years, contentedly, for longer.

But wherever we live, there is a yearning for rhythm, ritual and routine. After the maelstrom of youth, we seek out simplicity in living.

The call of the soul is to quell the noise, to slow the rush and race, even stopping for a half hour in reverence to God in the midst of a people who share the faith and the values that we espouse.

It gives us belonging, a sense of safekeeping that some things remain the same. So as the crows begin to build their nests, be reminded to embrace a rhythm in the midst of routine, never forgetting the ritual for therein in doing the same things time and time and time again, the busy world is hushed.

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