Teach pobail
No, the title of this post has nothing to do with instructing indigents on how to get out of jail. It’s an Irish word that means “church.” The correct pronunciation for American English speakers would be approximately chack PO-bwil (it would more or less sound like “Jack Pobble”).
What’s neat about this word, though, is to dissect its meaning by looking at each word individually. “Teach” means “house.” “Pobail” means community (it’s a cognate of people). In other words, this Irish word for church basically means “the house of the community” or “house of the people.”
The potential cross-fertilization between Celtic spirituality and the house church movement probably needs no further commentary. It’s just nice to see how the Irish language, which of course is the native language spoken by at least two of the three persons in the Holy Trinity, is so supportive of this nexus.
Personal Update…
Lots of fun stuff happening in Carl-world…
- The outline/table of contents of the big mysticism book is mostly complete. I meet again with the world’s coolest spiritual director, Fr. Tom Francis OCSO, on Friday to go over the details. This is important because once the skeleton is done I can start hanging the meat on the bones. I probably have some 30,000 words written on the book — not to mention material from this blog that will eventually find its way into the book — but I have to have a working outline before I can begin to put it all together.
- Yesterday I signed up for bass guitar lessons! They start March 19, which is good, because my Ken Wilber class runs through March 5. I’m excited. Right now I only know how to play two little riffs: the opening riff of “Smoke on the Water” and the middle section of “Roundabout” (the section with the lyrics that begin “Along the drifting cloud, the eagle searching down…”). Obviously, I need professional help to do something other than make noise…
- Also yesterday, thanks to some über-cool rebates and combining my DSL, cellular, and landline service into a package deal from AT&T, I was able to upgrade my phone to a BlackBerry, with only about $11 out of pocket expense and an actual reduction in my monthly phone/mobile/DSL costs. This is very exciting. I’m not the most technically up-to-date person — considering that the BlackBerry has been around since 1999, I guess that I’m finally just now crawling into the twenty-first century. I know the BlackBerry is all about email and online connectivity, but I’m mostly excited about the ability to blog and/or take notes when I’m not at a computer.
- Thanks to my brother’s lead, my family is in the process of moving my father from Virginia to an assisted living center in Athens, Georgia. He’ll only be about a mile from my brother (which is good because my brother is retired and can spend more time with Dad) and only about 70 miles from me. This is an 87.5% reduction in the distance I will have to travel to see Dad. We’re all excited about this. The move should happen by early March.
Life is good.
