Brother Barney's Love Song - A Memoir (Vol 2)

Joe Coyle, in his early twenties, has been working his way round the world aboard ships of the British merchant Navy, amazed by starry Mediterranean skies; captivated by his great liner gliding quietly along the waters of the Suez Canal - sand dunes rolling right up to the water s edge on the East and palm trees amid luxuriant green plantations stretching out to the West - followed by the intense heat of the Red Sea, and finally the primitive, sun burned rock that is Australia.

Working as a waiter and laundryman he succumbs to the magic of Africa, the swampland of Mozambique, the beauty of Dar es Salaam, the constant chatter of cicadas along the Mombasa coast. He is discovering the world, at a primitive level.

Then, coming back from New Zealand through the vast Pacific Ocean he discovers another world when he reads a book picked up in Wellington: Plato s " Symposium ," and is transported into an ancient Athenian debate about the mystery of love. Finishing his paperback Plato he is overcome by an awareness of God's love: " surrounded by, enraptured by, glowing within, such an experience of love and joy - silver jubilance, gold delight . "

He can scarcely believe the reality of it, but he realises this is what his searching is really about: the need for assurance that life has a purpose, is ultimately worth living.

Emboldened by this realisation Joe acts upon his love for a beautiful young girl, enchanted by green eyes and corn coloured hair. They become engaged. A joyful life of loving intimacy stretches before him - and then she breaks off the engagement, shocking Joe into a world of such misery that he never imagined. He has lost love and is forced on a new journey of exploration, investigating the reality of his mysterious experience of God s love. Is it all a hallucination?

He begins to examine our capacity for reason, our capacity to understand the nature of God - begins to search through the bible, the Qur an, the teaching of Buddha and Eastern mystics.

In Job, who lived more than 3,000 years before, he meets someone who has experienced the same depth of sorrow: " My eyes grow dim with grief, and my limbs wear away like a shadow . My days have passed far otherwise than I had planned, and every fibre of my heart is broken. I tell the tomb, you are my father, and call the worm my mother and my sister'. Where then is my hope? Who can see any happiness for me? "

At the end of a year of intense sorrow, kneeling in prayer, he is astounded to receive another gift of love, a stupendous force and a light of love beyond human experience. Along with his astonishment there comes a new weeping, a joy that overwhelms, so that he thinks he has gone mad. The force, the power revealed, is awesome, positively frightening, except that at the centre of it is a benevolence, a peace beyond anything ever dreamt of.

During a religious retreat, still seeking awareness and understanding, he meets the most beautiful, girl he has ever seen. He is delighted when they start to talk, easily, naturally and spontaneously, a sparkle in their relationship right from the start, despite the thought of love lost that haunts him. He learns that she is as warm hearted and merry as she is beautiful, with a smile that lights her face, coming from deep within.

What to do about it?

Consumed by a desire for perfection he makes the hard decision to devote his life totally to the God of love, in service to other people. He joins the monastic Order of Friars Preachers in the West Country of England, determined to take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

He discovers that giving up all things does indeed usher in a time of joy and, to his surprise, boisterous fun

Is this way of life for him

The novitiate is where he must find out