St. Patty's

I love the story of St. Patrick.  When I learned it last year, it brought a whole new meaning to the holiday that before only held memories of green. Green milk in the fridge, green eggs and ham for breakfast, and of course, getting pinched whether I wore green or not.  My husband's family was a bit more festive.  They at least made leprechaun traps and got a chocolatey surprise for almost catching those little gold lovers. In fact, we even made an ingenious contraption ourselves this year, thanks to hanging out with extended family the night before.  Here's our design.

You can't see it, but there's a shiny bauble inside attached to the string as "bait" since we know leprechauns love shiny things, and once they have ahold of it would never let it go-- thus pulling the door closed as he tries to steal it.  The other "opening" is not really an opening, but is meant to fool the leprechaun into a false sense of security as he enters the container, thinking he can always escape, when really it is a Seran Wrap barrier.  Hee hee, aren't we so tricky?  I would have made the container much prettier if I had, say, taken more than 5 minutes to make it.

As it was, the flimsy construction was no match for a feisty little leprechaun, and he got away, with enough time to write us a note and leave a "golden" chocolatey consolation prize.

As for the real story about Saint Patrick, I will summarize it for you:

First of all, Saint Patrick was British born, who at 16 was kidnapped by Irish
raiders and taken back to Ireland as a slave. He was rescued (in fact, he said
that he was told by God to flee captivity and go to the coast where he would
board a ship and be brought back to Britain), and when he returned to England he
joined the church (catholic I assume) and studied to become a priest. Once he
was a Bishop, he felt called to go on a mission to teach and convert the people
of Ireland, or to "save the Irish." He was very successful, and after thirty
years of preaching and spreading Christianity, he died on March 17th 461 A.D.

Just as a FYI, he was known to use the shamrock to explain the holy trinity.
"Wearing green" really meant wearing the shamrock in the beginning, and has
evolved to just wearing the color green.

Anyway, what a story of forgiveness and true conversion! I mean, he went back
to where he had been held captive to preach the Gospel. I think that is
amazing! 


So, maybe St. Patrick's day does have something to offer. I also like
the thought of the shamrock representing what we would call the Godhead.