This whole article started off with a simple thought. “St. Patrick’s day is coming, and wouldn’t it be fun to find an Irish flag to fly off the patio?” Now you have to understand a few things: One, I do have some Irish roots, and I have proven that to the Irish Government’s satisfaction. A Certificate of Irish Heritage hangs on my office wall to prove it. I’ve already mentioned my trip to Cill Airne agus Corcaigh (Killarney and Cork) in 1997, and the three things we learned about Lá Fhéile Pádraig-St. Patrick’s day-while there. (You can read about that here.) I’ve found that-besides all the obvious silly green paraphernalia-there’s not a small enough flag available locally to fly off our patio. The only one I could find was a 3’ x 5’ job, which might have doubled as a bedspread were I so inclined. The search for this has given me pause, however. (Hence this blog article.)
One other thought comes to mind on how Americans celebrate St. Patrick’s day: it’s smack in the middle of Lent, which means consuming copious amounts of booze is generally frowned upon by the Church as there are some who gave up booze for Lent. I was pleased to find a sober St.Patrick’s Day party in New York; one could only hope that concept takes root elsewhere. (Check out the webpage for it here...after you’re done reading the rest of the blog, if you don’t mind.)
Back to my thought: If this one day is theoretically celebrating all things Irish, you’d think I’d find Irish flags all over the place. Granted, this year there’s a lot more push to market Easter-which is another blog for another time. This year, Easter is early. (Thought: is it proper to consume a chocolate cross at Easter? Should such things even be sold?) In North America, the day certainly doesn’t seem to be much about a sainted Christian, one who has been credited with bringing the Christian faith to Ireland. And after going back through my pictures and digitizing 42 of them to get a feel for that trip once again, I can’t say that I saw too many Irish Princess tiaras, shirts telling people about how much beer they planned to drink, or even men pinching women’s hindquarters if they weren’t wearing green. (And I pity the idiot who tried pinching a woman wearing orange, as there are a few Protestants living outside Northern Ireland. That chap would likely get slugged into the next county.) It’s no longer even a celebration of Irishness, it seems. It appears to be more and more focused on a stereotype the Irish are really starting to fight: the drunk. In fact, I suspect Patrick would be somewhat appalled at how Americans celebrate a day which was meant to honor him, his legacy-and his Christian faith.
So...celebrate as you will, but keep in mind some of what I’ve said. Yes, I’ll be wearing something green that day; what that is will be depending on the weather. As for the flag that I’ve been looking for, the item that inspired all this writing tonight...I found one online, and even with shipping it’s ten bucks. It’s a nice looking cotton job with brass grommets, 12” by 18”. I’ll probably order it before the first of the month. The saddest part is the pole and bracket I’m going to have to get to fly it properly-as well as an American flag when those days to fly Old Glory come-will cost more than the flag will.
Now that’s wrong in and of itself.
Enough for now.
Nollaig Shona Dhaoibh! (Happy Christmas to you all!)
It’s that time of year again. This is likely my last blog for the year, so I might as well make it part Nollag litir (Christmas letter). We’ve loaded the CD player with Christmas CD’s-some 51 of of them. (We decided it was better than letting some commercial station play off the wall Christmas stuff all the time.) Our tree is up, and the Christmas cards are all sent. A candle is in the window, and I have decided to take a few minutes to reflect on the last year. That reflection starts off with a question: Where the heck has 2012 gone?!? I mean, come on! I know I’ve been busy. I didn’t think I was that busy...until I sat down to write this.
I’ve been writing, working, and singing. A lot of free time has been spent writing books in the Cosantóirí Chronicles series; the first five books are done and in epub format. Book six should be done by the end of the month, if all goes well; then I am editing all six books for iBook format. (There is part of an outline for a potential book seven, but that outline won’t even get finished until the others are edited and in iBook format.) You can check out what they’re about here: http://cosantoiri.wordpress.com. I’m also transcribing some old travels to the digital age; I have a few Hawai’i trips, some visits to Canada, a trip to Ireland, and if I can find them, a missions trip to Mexico. Then I’ll add some band and choir tours, and maybe a little Drum Corps and Barbershop stuff. It’s a long term project.
I also finished all the work for my third doctorate. All I have to do is pay the final bill (which isn't cheap) and they’ll send me the diploma. It’s a Ph.D in interdisciplinary studies; I’m done taking classes for right now. I’m busy both teaching and grading courses for Master’s International School of Divinity, and when I’m not writing on the fiction side I’m busy developing a course on a Celtic View of the Spiritual Disciplines. I am also developing a course on the writings of C.S. Lewis. Both of these should be done early next year if all goes well. C.S. Lewis will be done first; I’m still reading books for the other class-and enjoying them immensely. As a result of the fiction writing and the one course, I’ve been teaching myself Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic). It’s an interesting language-and easier than Japanese, Greek or Hebrew was. For fun and to clear my head I've also picked up the feadóg stáin, or tin whistle. I can play three songs on the thing already, and I've only had it a month or so.
Deena and I have traveled quite a bit this year. She competed with the Pride of Portland Sweet Adeline Chorus in Denver the first week of November; they took eighth in the world. Not too shabby! I taught Music and Performance VP for the Evergreen District’s Western Regional Leadership in Langley, BC a few weeks later. There have been a few trips to see Mom, and we all spent a week with 6,000 of our closest friends at the Barbershop Harmony Society’s International Convention held in Portland over the 4th of July week. We did a little camping, and I even managed to get in my first baseball game at AT&T park. (There’s more travels, but I’m not gonna go there right now.) Then there was this two week period at the beginning of August where it felt like everything stopped for the Summer Olympic games. Don’t tell me some of you weren’t up until midnight-or at least 11:00-watching some of that....
Speaking of activities, I’m still the assistant director for Eugene-Springfield’s “Cascade Chorus,” but resigned as the Music and Performance VP this fall due to health reasons...most of which are stress related. After the Division IV competition in Medford the quartet I sang in-“It’s About Time”-stopped singing together. It wasn’t due to anyone or anything...we just decided enough was enough. We’re all still good friends and laugh about stuff at chapter meetings. And I’m continuing my work as Director of Education for the Evergreen District of the BHS-for now, at least. I’ve kept busy with our local church, Ebbert Memorial UMC; I’m involved on the Congregational Leadership Team. I also update their website every so often, as time allows. I dropped off the Worship Planning team and the Wednesday night dinner crew for the same reason: stress. I have had to learn I can’t cram eighty hours of work, volunteering, writing, and so forth into a forty hour week and not have it impact my health. Being epileptic does place limits on the output of energy I have, and frankly I don’t have the same energy at nearly 48 as I did at 33. As a result I don’t handle stress as well any more, and so have needed to reduce my stress levels.
And oh, yes...we’re cleaning up around the place, sorting through stuff, and getting rid of things. That is both of us; I’ve been going through all kinds of stuff a little bit every day-old files in the filing cabinet, stuff in the storage bin, stuff in storage at Deena’s folks. It’s time; I have stuff I want to put up and haven’t been able to. For example, I don’t really need my class notes from TEDS and Moody any more. (I haven’t looked at them in years.) The notes from TEDS got sorted today, for example. I pulled the syllabi and tossed the rest. Yesterday, another piece from my collection of Royal Tara china went up: A china cat. (It sits next to the Waterford crystal panda Deena got for me years ago.)
Like I said-I’ve been a little busy, maybe too busy. So why am I telling you all this?
Because I haven’t been blogging much of late. And I felt you all deserved a reasonable explanation as to why. Unlike certain other bloggers, I have a little something called a life. And life gets in the way of blogging sometimes. My goal for next year on the blog is roughly fifteen articles; at the very least I’m aiming for one a month. (Heck, even if I only put up ten, that’s twice as many as this year.) Another part of the reason for not blogging: It’s too easy to get into matters political-and I didn’t want to go there. Not this year. Not ever, if I can avoid it.
And so I want to leave you all with this thought. 2012 is over, effectively. Instead of complaining about what is, work to change what you can-and try to make peace with what you can’t. Better yet, to paraphrase Adam Savage: Reject the current reality and substitute your own. No, you can’t become deity, or replace the President. But you should do what you can to make your little corner of the world a better place. That’s part of having a whole new year to play with, after all. And it is also the Christmas message: hope. Hope for a better eternity, hope of new life, in Jesus-who we celebrate the birth of this time of year.
Nollaig Shona agus Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Daoibh! (Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year to you all!)
As I write this, tomorrow will be St. Patrick's Day. Many Americans will use this for an excuse (as if they truly need one) to swill green beer by the litre, wear green (and pinch those who don't), eat corned beef and cabbage as penance for all that green beer, adopt a rather bad Irish accent and pretend they have Irish roots.
In short, many Americans will use this as an excuse to party to excess. Those of us who actually have Celtic/Pict roots will go through the day and wonder what the fuss is about. However, we'll celebrate with everyone else.
There are three things I learned about St. Patrick's Day when I went to Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland in 1997. I share these with you:
1. St. Patrick's Day--Lá Fhéile Pádraig--is a Holy Day of Obligation in Ireland. That means, in layman's terms, nothing opens until after noon Mass--if anything opens at all. Most places that do open are usually for the tourists who come to visit. Parades on St. Patrick's Day in Ireland are a fairly new thing--dating from the 18th century.
2. Many Irish don't like corned beef and cabbage any more than you do. They are more likely to have mutton or salmon, and potatoes for dinner.
3. Green beer is repugnant to the Irish. In fact, the national drink is Guinness--which is a brown stout! If you are successful in turning it green, it's not fit for drinking. Many others will have Harp; it's a lager--but best served without dye.
Sláinte Mhaith--good health to you.
Enough for now.
(Posted 3/16/09)
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