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.
                        

The First Buzzard of Spring

Yesterday was Saint Patrick's Day.
Everyone knows that if you catch a leprechaun
he has to grant you a wish.
To lure in any neighborhood leprechauns,
I was dressed as a leprechaun
and distributing luck
by putting green glitter
on the heads of kids in line for dismissal.
Fun!
...also a hygiene check:
how long will it take the glitter to leave their hair?
A little girl said,
"Hey Leprechaun!
Hey!
Hey! Hey!"
I turned around.
"Yes?"
"Hey! Did you know I'm Amish?"
I gave her an extra sprinkle.

The glitter was green,
but outside
the grass has not yet begun to green.
It has been cold.
At recess yesterday
in right field
the kids found a large frozen puddle.
I warned, "Be careful,"
and turned them loose.
Thump.
Thump thump.
The thumping was science at work.
Ice is slippery.
Gravity pulls mass toward the earth.
Lessons were learned with squeals and grins.
As small-bottomed impacts
made the ice crack
kids picked up the pieces
"This looks like glass!"
and learned about transparence
and translucence.

Today the ice was mostly gone.
Instead,
the kids piled sticks between the trunks of trees.
L found a spider on a chunk of bark
and took it over to show the girls.
"Augh!!"
They screamed
and ran away,
not because they are afraid of spiders
but because it is fun to scream.
T found tufts of fur,
remnants of a rabbit long gone.
E insisted the eagle that killed it
was up in the woods.
There is a fine line
between pretending
and lying.
Then I looked up
and saw a big bird.
Not an eagle...
the tipping of the v-shaped wings
told me it was a turkey vulture.
The first buzzard of spring!
I blew my whistle to call the kids together
and pointed out the vulture.
"Lets make our arms into a V
and tip from side to side.
Be vultures!"
As we tipped and soared around center field,
a small voice said, "There's a V!"
She pointed up.
There above our heads
were four Vs
headed north.
White Vs.
Snow geese!
I have never seen snow geese.
Canada geese are exciting enough...
but snow geese!
We form our class into a V,
girls on one slant,
boys on the other,
and flap our goosey group
northward
toward the school.

We haven't found any leprechauns,
but we are indeed lucky.
Saint Patrick would call us
blessed.