Explore four real-world stories that reflect individual or community transformation. They each reflect the spirit of Ashok and his journey. As you read them, perhaps think about epiphany-like moments in your own life or others’ and how those moments might echo Ashok’s story. You could even have a go at writing them down.
Two little boys were blessed by an extraordinary nanny. Eight and ten, bright and curious, they were the sons of newly mega wealthy parents, rich in money and poor in time. She was Bulgarian, brought up with the joy and initiative of a nation rediscovering itself after a long period of hibernation. She was skilled in everyday things, with an open heart which invited others, even strangers, to share and connect...
Brendan had a gift and a passion. He had been gifted with a remarkable singing voice which put him front and centre at pub nights and social gatherings. Then he was invited by the Armagh City Choir to a rehearsal in the Cathedral, where he found a community of likeminded souls and voices who met simply to make divine music together.
His passion from childhood was to play the kettledrum in the great processions which celebrated the historic battles between Catholic and Protestant communities. Politics had
resorted thirty years ago to the bullet and the gun and less publicly he had become an active member of the paramilitary wing of the Ulster Defence Regiment...
There is a river in Wales which snakes between low hills and on certain nights glows like liquid silver in the light of the moon. In daylight, it can be so still that it’s only by the gurgles it makes as it slides across fossil-filled stones from another age that you know it’s alive.
A man from London bought it and fell in love with its independence and connectivity with places far away. But this was ownership of a kind he had never encountered before...
The present times are confused and conflicted. Wars, migration, gross inequality and climate change are signs of a sickness in society which is embedded in our way of thinking which is linear and exclusive, our priority of material growth, our way of organising which is national and partial, and our values of competing and winning.
They are not the solution to our confusion, they are its cause and preclude the great transformation which must take place to preserve the grace and wonder of the human race...