Why do people drink green beer?
This last week was St. Patrick's day. You may not have even noticed, or you may have attended a party with friends or sent your kids to school wearing green so they wouldn't get pinched (or forgot to, like we did!)
Fun fact: He was originally depicted in blue, not green!
So why do we do all the weird things to celebrate St. Patrick? Other than giving us another excuse to party, what did St Patrick do that is worth a deeper look?
In 403 AD, at age 16, he was captured by Irish Pirates and taken from Britain. (There's some big T trauma for you.)
Though his grandfather had become a priest, and his father a deacon, he himself was not an active follower of God. But that would change during his 6 years of captivity while serving the household of some druids.
During his slavery, he worked as a shepherd, and it was there that God met him. He no doubt recalled, in that time of darkness, the things he had heard in his youth; Psalm 23, John 10, etc. In the darkness of the valley he found the Good Shepherd.
Fast forward a few years, and he followed the voice of God and escaped back home. Shortly after, he received a vision of the Irish people imploring him to come back and show them God. He went on to be ordained as a priest, and never forgot that vision.
Sometime in his mid life, Patrick found the strength and will to return to the place of trauma, and the place where he met God, and brought redemption. He became a missionary to Ireland, sharing the good news with his captors, and bringing light to that dark valley.
Within a couple hundred years, Ireland had become completely Christianized. There were no longer druids (who practiced witch craft), but, in his own words: "Never before did they know of God except to serve idols and unclean things. But now, they have become the people of the Lord, and are called children of God. The sons and daughters of the leaders of the Irish are seen to be monks and virgins of Christ!"
It would have taken great courage to go back to a place of bondage and slavery, even carrying the light of redemption. He would have had to revisit the old wounds and remember what was stolen. He had to risk. In fact during his time as missionary he was beaten, chained, and taken for all he had more than once before his death. But he was a different man than he was at 16, and had found the inner peace and strength necessary to re-enter those dark places. I'll raise a glass to that.
This challenges me, and hopefully you, to consider what dark valleys of bondage in my own story need to be redeemed? What was stolen in my own life that needs to be reclaimed? Where does my 16 year old self need this new man to revisit and bring the light?
And what might be at the end of the rainbow as I walk down that path?
________________________________
Cody Buriff, Director of Resource Initiatives
