St. Patrick's Day

 


Are you wearing green?  It's St. Patrick's Day!  Everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day.  Or at least we can celebrate the Irish and their traditions today.  Why not?  

St. Patrick was a real person.  Over the centuries the stories of what he did have grown. One of the legends is that he chased all snakes from Ireland into the sea after they attacked him during a 40-day fast.  (Am I seeing parallels of Jesus here?) Of course snakes didn't exist in Ireland at that time.  (Or so I'm told, maybe that's another legend.)  Bu we don't have to take that literally.  (As most stories shouldn't.  Stories aren’t necessarily literal but exist to try and teach us something.)  It is said that the removal of "snakes" is a metaphor for the removal of paganism and the focus on Christianity (specifically Catholicism).  Or as I found on History.Com; " the legend might be more metaphorical in nature. In Christianity, snakes or serpents often symbolize evil or paganism. For example, the devil appears as a deceitful serpent as is implied in Genesis 3 of the Bible. St. Patrick was best known for his Christian missionary work in Ireland, where he converted many people from their pagan beliefs and rituals. “Perhaps banishing snakes was an allegory for ridding Ireland of sin, or paganism or heresy, or all of these things.”

Snakes tend to get a bad rap.  After all they do plenty of good, but they are low to the ground, scaly/slimy and in general not well liked.  (Sorry snakes.  I’m not a fan.  But if you stay in your area and out of mine we’ll be just fine.)  However, the word "snake" can be used in a derogatory way.  AI told me this morning: “calling someone a "snake" means they are deceitful, treacherous, and untrustworthy, pretending to be a friend while being fake and manipulative, often backstabbing or betraying others to get what they want."  If we use the word in that way, then ridding ourselves of snakes is definitely a good thing.

We all have snakes in our lives.  And unlike actual snakes, they don't usually have any redeeming qualities.  They are in it for themselves and not for the good of others.  A snake will stab you in the back, lie, cheat...well you get the idea.

We need to be like St. Patrick and rid ourselves of the snakes in our lives.  It might be personal life.  It might be professional.  I'd argue that there are plenty of snakes in our government right now and we definitely need to weed them out.  (I think St. Patrick would want us to.)  Maybe we don't push them off the cliff and into the sea, but... (Or maybe we do?)

Perhaps this St. Patrick's day in addition to wearing green, eating corned beef, cabbage and Irish soda bread  (I've made two loaves this year...I believe mine are sweeter and softer than the traditional kind, but darn it's yummy) and having a pint (or maybe a dram of whiskey), we can commit ourselves to ridding ourselves of the snakes that exist in our lives, our communities, our country and our world.  And in doing so, we make this world a better place.  Just like St. Patrick did (or tried to.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!


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