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<\/a><\/div>\nI\u2019m an American.<\/p>\n
As for most who can claim that name, this means my ancestors came from many places.<\/p>\n
But the largest, by a long way, part of who I am, well over half, is as a child of the Irish diaspora. Four of my great grandparents were born in the old Sod\u2026<\/p>\n
And so I can\u2019t completely ignore today. Even if it is a silly holiday we Americans observe. Memories of a Catholic missionary drowned in green beer.<\/p>\n
But aren\u2019t our dreams of holy lands always something like that?<\/p>\n
And life itself, life itself?<\/p>\n
Sometimes this sotted dreaming leads to blood and fire. And here in this country, in my childhood and beyond, nostalgic dollars funding killing in a distant land for obscure goals rarely standing up to any close scrutiny\u2026<\/p>\n
Like so many diaspora dreams\u2026<\/p>\n
And, yet, there is something in that longing, that heart feeling.<\/p>\n
Something deep and true
about who we are and what home is\u2026 <\/p>\n
A pointing.<\/p>\n
<<\/p>\n
And a remembering in our bodies of something that in fact lies not in the past but in the present.<\/p>\n
Here\u2026<\/p>\n
Now\u2026<\/p>\n
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