If you build it, they will come.



The title of this blog relies heavily on the storyline of that Kevin Costener hit movie, which was released in the nineties, 'Field of Dreams'.
Last Thursday night (July 20th 2017), the Dunshaughlin Pastoral Centre was my field of dreams. Hard to explain and difficult to put into written words, but it was over the numerous prayers and chats that I have and continue to share with St. Pio that this crazy idea of my talk 'INSIDE OUT' was born.
For the last 3 months, the idea of doing this was in the forefront of mind. Everytime I would pray or relate to St. Pio, the thought and detail of doing the talk I did last Thursday was conditioned to be forefront of my mind. As I said, this happened everytime I spent time with St. Pio. The thoughts and ideas shared with me were not going away. The really strange bit for me was that I readily accepted this, call it a proposal, but I know it was more than that. When I expressed how nerve wrecking this would be, I was told that the nerves won't even 'show'..and to be fair, they didn't show. I should have listened to St. Pio's words more clinically. You see, what didn't show, was still there, just hidden. Under my jacket, my shirt was literally destroyed with presperation. It was my friend Mary Robinson who briskly walked up to me straight after my last few words, when I took my jacket off and could see what had happened. Mary got hold of Alison and the two ladies high tailed it back to our house for a towel AND a clean shirt...Thank You again Mary, the end result, if left (and I would have) was a nice dose of a cold or something maybe worse. 

My overall main concern was my emotions. I knew, during my talk, NOT to latch on and make eye contact with those people that are and will always be very special to me, because if I did, it would trigger a flow of waterworks that would be rather difficult to stop. Thankfully this scenario was totally avoided. I figured 30  people might come, possibly 40. So the plan was to put out out 50 chairs, which we did. By 8pm last Thursday night, we had 160 chairs (all of them) on the floor and each one was holding it's own !!

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© Ronan Tormay 
I was so humbled to receive this message after the event.
 It's from a childhood friend 
whom to this day we still share that precious friendship bond. 

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Over the past few days, I had been asked how often did I rehearse my talk. I'm still getting funny looks when I tell them 'I didn't'. Yes their jaw drops (which is quiet funny for me to see) but then I tell them, 
"If I rehearsed last Thursday night, it would have been very possible and indeed quite probable that in reality I would skew off my rehearsed set. If I did that, it would have literally thrown my whole talk off kilter. So the easiest and most practical option for me was to rehearse nothing. All I had to do was speak from the heart and tell the truth, and that's exactly what I did". 


Selfies with a twist.
My SLR (digital) camera, mounted on a selfie stick while been connected via wifi
 to my iPhone where I could view the live shot the SLR could see and 
from where I could remotely fire the shutter release of the camera.


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I had two video feeds filming the event. One was live streaming on Facebook while the other was a proper video we used upload to YouTube which has now just been completed.


J
'INSIDE OUT'
Recorded Live 
Duration: 1hr. 

If you couldn't make my talk and wish to see it, please do click on the link above. 
It's on YouTube to be shared, so please do share away. 


I hope that in some small way, wheather you have seen my talk in person or on line, that you walked away from it knowing or indeed feeling something that you haven't done before. Every day is a learning day for me, make it happen for you too. 

It's important right now to let you know that €1,107.07 was raised on the night for the Gary Kelly Cancer Support Centre. Unreal. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH. 

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In closing, a big hearted and genuine THANK YOU to my friend Jack Kavanagh for his behind the scenes help he offered (and I gladly accepted) in helping me shape my talk to the way I wanted it. 

To my cousin and Ballooning Crew Chief Brian Meegan for filming and uploading the event to YouTube.

 To my school pal buddy Ronan Tormay for looking after the LIVE Facebook feed on the night. 

To my neighbour and friend Daragh Geelon for looking after the pre-talk background music and the 'Happy Birthday' soundtrack I needed just at the end. 

Which brings to my very good friend (he's handy at flying balloons too mind you), 
Sir Andrew of Blagdon. 
Andy flew in from Sommerset that morning to attend my talk that evening. It just so happens that Sir Andrew had 60 turns on the coil just a few days earlier. It would have been very remiss of me if I didn't get 160 people to sing 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' to one of my best friends on the night. 


Murf Xxx

 (Click email address to say hello, securely).

Comments

  1. Jack22 August 2017 at 18:22

    Amazing to read such stuff on the internet. Completely restores your faith in God because it confirms that he is with you every step of the way and will surely help you!

    ReplyDelete

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