About Me

Lisa Treacy on Meri & Misi

To talk about Meri and Misi on their blog - what an honour!

That’s “honor” to my friends across the pond and actually I think I prefer your spelling, after all honor is not about you it’s about how you treat everybody else. And that’s not a bad place to start this commentary. Both of these beautiful ladies are as outstanding in regards to how they value others as they are in the incredible talents and character they possess.

I first meet Meredith on her own turf in NYC. It was a fresh November night and my husband and I had just flown in from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and after an “interesting” cab ride in from JFK we found ourselves on the set of Starsky & Hutch – fire escapes down the side of the building and everything! And there was Meredith…I thought she’d just stepped out of a movie. This larger than life, gorgeous creature with flame-red lips and a killer pair of stilettos to match, led us {and our LARGE suitcases} up eight flights to her amazing apartment, I was enthralled! We weren’t there two minutes when Meri showed her true colours – in her now familiar generous, kind and selfless manner, Meri was vacating her apartment for us and heading to the other end of Manhattan to stay.

This generosity of spirit means that Meri will never see you stuck; she’s always giving away her Top Tips [especially about great restaurants and bars – she should take on the Rough Guide!]; and all strangers are simply friends she hasn’t met yet. This generous, enveloping spirit is in no small part stirred and stoked by her journey of faith. As she seeks to follow the man who gave everything he had for mankind, so Meri seeks to be like him in the way she gives her time, energy & stuff to others. As time goes on Meri will have the chance to enact her generosity in fighting and caring for those in this world that don’t have as much as she does – watch this space!

My first memory of Misi was the tear filled eyes and nodding agreement that looked back at me across a wee church hall in Dublin as I voiced my frustration about how silent the institution of the church seemed to be on the issue of poverty in comparison with Bono, Geldolf et al. at the Live 8 concert. At dinner that night Misi and I ended up sitting beside one another and we’ve been friends ever since. We found a common bond – well, two actually. We’re both on a journey to work out who we are and who God is, and how does it all fit together. And we want to change the world and if we can do that in partnership with the great prophet Bono, all the better! Both of these bonds means there is struggle, tears, highs and lows; light and dark, successes and bitter disappointments in our lives – but it’s one helluva ride!

I think Misi is a genius – not only in the IQ sort of way, but in the flexible, creative, problem-solving, critical thinking way. I love talking to her and wrestling ideas with her and I love that Misi has lots of shades of grey and only some black & white in her life. On the outward Misi is mysterious and yet gobbie [a Northern Irish term for someone who is not backward about coming forward with their opinions!]; she doesn’t give a lot away yet wears her heart on her sleeve! In short Misi is like the rest of us – a heap of contradictions or oxymorons – to use a literary term in her hono(u)r. And I love her for it!!.

Her honor and love of others is constant. Misi will change the world, she is changing the world and she has already changed the world of those of us who know and adore this fabulous woman.

I love these woman, its an privilege and honor to have them in my life and count them as friends.