Eleven Things You Should Know About Saint Patrick

 During March,
we hear much about leprechauns
and pots of gold
and rainbows
and green beverages
but there is more to Saint Patrick's Day than that--
 there's Saint Patrick himself!
 Here are eleven things you should know about Saint Patrick.

1. Patrick wasn't Irish.
He was born and raised in Britain
and called Patricius.
When he was sixteen
he was taken to Ireland by Irish pirates,
or as they say on the Emerald Isle,
"Oirish" pirates.
He was sold as a slave to Miliucc
and watched sheep.

2. Patrick prayed. A lot.
While he watched Miliucc's sheep
he was hungry.
Cold.
Alone
(except for hundreds of sheep)
and lonely.
Patrick says that he sometimes
prayed a hundred times
day and night.
The bad news is:
Patrick was a slave.
The good news is:
while being a slave,
Patrick met God.

3. Patrick trusted God for miracles.
A voice said, "Look, your ship is ready!"
so he left the sheep,
ran away,
and got on a ship leaving Ireland.
It landed in a desolated place
with no food.
The ship's captain taunted Patrick:
"How about it, Christian?
Pray for us.
We're starving to death!"
Patrick prayed
and a herd of pigs appeared.
Pork chops!
Though sadly, probably no bacon.

4. Patrick loved his enemies.
Even though he loved seeing his family again,
in a dream,
a voice from Ireland
said, "We beg you to come."
And. He. Went. Back.

5. Patrick used what the Irish already believed
to teach them about God.
The people in Ireland
had been worshipping the sun.
Patrick told them
about the God who created the sun
and sent his Son, Jesus
who died
on a cross
for them.
The two symbols,
the circular sun
and the traditional cross
were combined to make a Celtic cross.

6. Patrick's followers taught stories from the Bible
by carving pictures on the Celtic crosses.
They did this
because most people couldn't read.

This carving of the feeding of the five thousand is going to take all night!

 7. The part about Patrick
chasing the snakes out of Ireland
is not true.
Have you ever tried to chase snakes?
It's almost as hard as herding cats!
Actually,
there were no snakes in Ireland
but he devil is sometimes portrayed as a snake
and Patrick did all he could
to chase the devil out of Ireland.

8. The part about Patrick
using a shamrock
to teach about the holy trinity
may not be true, either.
But shamrocks grow in Ireland
and sometime he may have used a shamrock
in his teaching
and just didn't write it down.

9. We celebrate Saint Patrick's Day on March 17,
but March 17 is not Patrick's birthday.
It's his death day.
Though that's KIND OF like a birthday
because Patrick look his first breath in Heaven that day.

10. Patrick may have written a famous prayer
now called "Saint Patrick's Breastplate."
Some people have turned parts of it into a song.
Want to hear it?
Click Christ Be All Around Me.





11. Actually, I was kidding about there being eleven things.
There are only ten.
Or maybe twenty-three.
You can learn more about Saint Patrick
by reading
How the Irish Saved Civilization
by Thomas Cahill

 or Saint Patrick of Ireland
by Philip Freeman

or
if you like pictures
and are short on time,
the children's book
Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland
by Tomie dePaola.

Many blessings,
Irish blessings,
this season and always.

Sue

PS. Don't want to be done yet with Irish thoughts?
Try Robin Mark's Irish worship song Ancient Words.
Den and I have visited Robin Mark's church in Belfast
and have sung this song in worship.
It ties us in to the centuries.

How about celebrating with traditional Irish music?
The Chieftains play O'Sullivan's March,
a music video whose opening shots
are of the above-mentioned Celtic cross
and Croagh Patrick,
Saint Patrick's mountain
that Den and I climbed
but not barefoot like some traditionally do.
Sharp rocks!

Or a song from my growing-up years,
the Irish Rovers'  Unicorn Song.

Or Northern Irishman James Galway's  Danny Boy.

Still reading?
I close with the traditional Irish blessing:

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
the rain fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may GOD hold you in the palm of his hand.

Now go eat a potato.
                        

Perfect Gifts

In the last three months
I have received three perfect gifts:
1. a Big Bad Wolf doll
that eats Grandma
that Paul's family found at IKEA
2. a book titled "What If?"
that answers bizarre questions like
"What would happen
if the earth stopped turning?"
from science-son Luke
3. a remote-controlled,
battery-operated candle
from Uncle Jack
so I won't set the house on fire again.
Never leave a burning candle unattended.

Last week
I received yet another Perfect Gift:
Heidi gave me a t-shirt
emblazoned "Dances With Squirrels."
It came with a card that said
"To appreciate nonsense
requires a serious
interest in life."




Heidi and I started our nonsense in elementary school.
We sat beside each other,
skinny sixth graders
in the condemned Second Avenue building,
spending our spare time
writing notes in code
for the guys behind us to crack.
We were partners
on the class trip
to the Hershey zoo.
In junior high,
we cultivated new friendships
as she became the cheerleading mascot
while I spent hours with the band
and our paths diverged.

Forty five years later
we are again together in school,
she in third grade
and me in first grade
at Penfield Elementary.
It didn't take long to renew our friendship.
We were two old dogs,
circling and sniffing,
tails tentatively wagging,
catching up.
We have much in common
besides DAHS class of '74:
Cat dilemmas.
Aging mothers.
Love of quotes.
Goodwill bargains.
Appreciation of Einstein.
Children's literature.
We ask each other doggy questions:
How was the cancer?
Ruff.
Why is the hall wet?
Roof.
What do you think of Kate DiCamillo?
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr... great!
We compare doggy brains
and find that both are powered by squirrels.
Her squirrel runs nicely in her wheel,
analyzing situations,
neatly making to-do lists.
My brain hosts a family of hyperactive squirrels
who take their wheel apart
to see how it works
and then crank up the music
and boogie.
Heidi organizes
Read Across America Night
while I dress up as Clifford
and pelt kids with snowballs.
She reads the morning announcements
in a calm, quiet voice
while I make my loud, annoying math puppet Claw
read when it's my turn.
She catalogues the book room;
I greet kids dressed as Mother Nature
when the seasons change.
She makes me think.
I make her laugh,
and I love that
she appreciates my humor.

This week
when I took down our cardinal pictures in the hall
I could not bring myself
to throw away the ripped-paper letters
so I rearranged them instead
and added my own picture.
Heidi laughed,
shook her head,
and said I should blog about it.
And I have.


May your squirrels dance this week
as you contemplate perfect gifts.
Friendship is one of them.
 

Pennywhistles, Painted Nails, and Prayers

Last night
we braved the icy roads
and took the jeep to State College
to see the Chieftains,
Ireland's premiere musicians,
in concert at Eisenhower Auditorium.
We arrived early to visit the grandgirls.
Den taught six-year-old Anna
how to play Kings,
a checker game he learned from his mom,
while I assisted three-year-old Lucy
in using silly putty
to make grapes
and grilled cheese sandwiches
for her sick stuffed animals.
Then Anna showed me Shelby's bucket of nail polish.
"Would you like to do my nails?" I asked.
Anna was thrilled.
"Wow! Yes!
I've never been allowed
to do the painting before!"
We sat down at the dining table
with paper towels
and a wide selection of polish.
"What color would you like, Grammy?"
"You choose for me."
Pale yellow and orange
alternated on the left hand,
plain with sparkly blue on the right.



I used to wear nail polish in my teens and twenties
as my mother had encouraged me
in the small habits of ladyhood,
but one day my friend Janet observed
"Your polish is always chipped.
Your nails are different lengths.
Why do you bother?"
She had a point.
From that day on,
I gave up polish.
Until yesterday.

I went to the Chieftains concert with flashy nails.
We sat at the edge of the first tier,
Den in his Aran fisherman's knit
and me in my green Donegal Irish sweater.
I leaned over the edge to see if anyone else had dressed thematically.
Two people in green.
Three guys in wool driving caps.
I then estimated the auditorium's seating capacity
and also had fun
with my green laser pointer
until Den encouraged me to put it away.
Then Paddy Moloney
carried in his pennywhistles and uilleann pipes
and Matt Molloy his flute.
There was a bodhran
and a guitarist
and two fiddles
and a harp
and a mandolin player.
There were Irish dancers
and a Scottish vocalist
and the Nittany Children's Choir
and a local step dance class
and Jaffa bagpipers 
and a family from Canada,
The Next Generation Leahy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXd_dSkScvg,
whose amazing dancers just kept getting tinier.

We closed our eyes
and we were back in Ireland
in Matt Molloy's pub in Westport.
We could almost smell the whiskey.

Irish instrumental music
is the happiest
and the saddest
in the world.
The bodhran thumps in your chest
and the vibrations hit your toes.
The pennywhistle wavers in your ear
and your eyes mist.
And not a word is spoken.
Perhaps music is interpreted in a different part of the brain,
having no interface with letters
or words.
It is a language all its own.
Our friend Barry said
that perhaps the Psalms
are the Irish music of the Bible.
Great joy
and lament.

During the night's final number,
audience members were encouraged to hold hands in a line
and dance their way through the aisles.
I dashed from the balcony to join them.
As we stomped enthusiastically across the stage,
the lady behind Den asked,
"Which one is your wife?"
"The one in the green sweater
and tan boots."
"She looks like a leprechaun."

Today I decided to start wearing nail polish again--
but only on my left little finger.
The polish will remind me
of Anna's first try at polishing
and of that pennywhistle night
of joy and lament.
When I notice my little fingernail
I will pray for my grandgirls,
for Anna
and for Lucy,
that they will live lives of much joy
and encounter grace in the sorrows.





P.S. Not to be outdone by her older sister,
Lucy
(with help from Shelby)
painted Den's toenails
bubblegum pink.

P.P.S.  Want to hear the Chieftains?
Click below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7pDiO52xSs