Happy St. Pat's

I'll be honest with you, since I stopped writing my weekly column for the Mapleton PRESS, I've posted a whole lot more material on my cartooning blog and on my faith blog. I'm still kind of trying to figure out how to treat this "flagship" blog. More personal, more political, more humor? I really haven't had the discipline to write every week now that there's not the structure of a print deadline.

But, if you miss the print column, there's always "re-runs." I told you to do this for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and even for Arizona Statehood Day- so now, why not take a trip in the way-back machine and read some humor and history about Saint Patrick's Day. I even included a few recipes!

But first, a wee bit about my Irish pedigree. My wife's Dad (my "farmer-in-law) is part McCutcheon. My Dad always figured that Mallory was Irish, but much to his chagrin he found out we were (of all things) mostly ENGlish! Ah, but then there's me sainted Irish mother. She's a Reilly. No really. A Reilly? Really? Really.


Think you're Irish? With St. Patty's coming up, I thought I might share the story of my mother's family coat of arms.

Legend goes that our clan was in a war with another family over an island off the coast of Ireland. To settle the matter, both sides chose one champion to race in boats out to the aforementioned island. Whichever Irishman first laid hand on the beach, their clan won. Well, row as hard as he might, Reilly saw that he might not quite make it in time- so he cut off his own hand and threw it with his one remaining good won onto the beach- this winning the war.

Erin go braugh! Livin the life of Reilly.

"And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one of your body parts than to have your whole body go into hell."
~Matthew 5:30

Happy St. Pat's

May your St. Patrick's day be filled with Audacious Hopes!

Happy St. Pat's

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Religious leader loved enemies, prayed, taught, stood for grace
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday,March 15, 2007 – Page 3

Once upon a time, in the ‘Dark Ages’ there was a Christian family living near the coast of Britain in an outpost of the dying Roman empire. This family included a young boy by the name of Patrick. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

Legend has it that he was kidnapped by a band of barbarians, Celtic barbarians. Did you happen to see “Barbarians Week” on the History Channel? Great stuff. The Celts made some great swords, they beat iron into steel... but I digress.

The Celts, known for their pagan worship of tree spirits, took Patrick for a slave. Among his other duties, he was taught fishing and shepherding. During his long hours watching sheep, he spent a lot of time talking to God. Some people call that prayer.

It was an odd thing because he wasn’t mistreated too badly as a slave, as a matter of fact, he became very fond of the people he served and had compassion for them. How about that? Sounds crazy. Actually, it sounds a little bit like something Jesus once said, what was that? Oh yeah, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)
But the shepherd slave boy did miss his family. Legend has it that he promised God that he would become a priest if He let him somehow escaped.

Sure enough, (you knew where this was going, didn’t you?) sure enough, Patrick escaped and became a priest. Eventually he volunteered to return to the people who had kidnapped him and became the first serious Christian missionary to Ireland.

Now the legends say that Ireland was being plagued with snakes. In a story that was part Moses and part Pied Piper, Patrick was supposed to have led all the snakes into the sea.

Truth is never as exciting, but sometimes just as important as fiction. Geologists and biologists suspect that there never were snakes in Ireland to begin with, yet archaeologists have found lots of images of snakes there. Well, scholars have two thoughts on the snake thing.

One is that snakes and serpent-like dragons were used in much of pagan Celtic designs. The Celts had at one time dominated most of Europe and eventually settled in the British Isles, so they surely would’ve seen plenty of snakes beyond Ireland. At any rate, some historians think that Patrick’s evangelism was so successful and spreading the Word of Jesus, that he symbolically drove out the snakes by overcoming the ancient spirit and nature worship.
The other theory is that he drove the snakes out symbolically by teaching the truth and overcoming a popular heresy of his time, Pelagianism.

Pelagius was a monk, supposedly from Ireland, who taught that the human will, along with good deeds and self-denial, was enough to be considered righteous. He told his people that being good was all you needed for salvation. To him, the grace of God was just a booster; a help, but not necessarily essential. Pelagius didn’t believe in “original sin,” but thought that Adam had just set bad example, rather than condemning us all to perpetual state of selfishness and short-sightedness. He also thought that Christ’s good example showed us the path to salvation, not by His sacrifice on the cross, but through self control.

Because of the whole Adam and Eve being tempted by the serpent in the garden imagery, this false doctrine of Pelagianism was often represented by snakes.

Whether God miraculously used him to save Ireland from literal snakes or just from “snakes in the grass,” you can understand why Patrick became a national hero.

Perhaps his most important contribution was his helping people overcome their confusion about the Trinity. He used the shamrock, the three leafed clover, to explain how God is three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet only one being, only one God.

Patrick’s success at converting the Irish people to Christianity upset the Celtic Druid priests and chieftains. They had him arrested several times, but he escaped every time. He established monasteries and set up schools and churches all over the emerald isle.

After thirty years in ministry he retired to County Down, where died on March 17, 461 A.D. That day has been commemorated as St. Patrick’s Day ever since.

No historians have been able to find any evidence that Patrick himself ever tried green beer.

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Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. ‘Ted’s Column’ has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. You can read it weekly at http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com If you’d like to see any of Ted’s editorial cartoons bigger and brighter, you can visit http://tmal.multiply.com/photos/album/2

Enjoy these Irish recipes:

Curach (Irish honey-and-oatmeal cream)

2 oz Medium-grind oatmeal
10 fl oz Heavy cream
2 ts Runny honey
3 tb Whiskey
12 oz Raspberries

Toast the oatmeal on a cookie sheet under the broiler, or in a hot oven -- watch it carefully and stir it from time to time -- until it turns a pale golden color. Leave it to cool completely. Whip the cream until it holds its shape, stir in the honey and whiskey, then the cold toasted oatmeal. Layer the raspberries and the cream mixture in the glasses, saving a few of the berries for decoration on top. Serve slightly cool.

Steak and Guinness pie

1 kg Round steak
1 tb Flour
1 ts Brown sugar
1 tb Raisins (optional)
5 Onions
300 ml Guinness
8 Slices bacon
3 oz Lard
Chopped parsley

Place the meat in a casserole, peel and chop the onions, and fry until golden before adding them to the meat. Add the raisins (if wanted) and brown sugar, pour in the Guinness, cover tightly and simmer over a low heat or in a very moderate oven (325-350F) for 2 1/2 hours. Stir occasionally, and add a little more Guinness or water if the rich brown gravy gets too thick. Meanwhile, line a deep pie dish with half the pie crust: bake it blind: then add the Guinness/beef mixture from the casserole, cover with the top layer of pie crust, and bake until finished, probably about 10 more minutes.

Irish Coffee

1 1/2 oz Irish whiskey
8 oz Hot coffee
1 ts Creme de menthe
1 Maraschino cherry
Dessert topping
1 ts Brown sugar; or to taste

Pour Irish whiskey into a coffee mug. Fill with black coffee and brown sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved. Spray a generous amount of whipped dessert topping (the canned, pressurized topping is easiest to use) on top of the coffee. Trickle creme de menthe to form green stripes on the whipped topping and place the cherry on top. Serve immediately.

luck of the Irish

SNL - Belushi: The Luck of the Irish
written by John Belushi

Jane Curtin: And now we come to St Patrick's Day and John Belushi is here to discuss the luck of the Irish.
John Belushi: Thank you, thank you very much. Well, it's come that time again, St. Patrick's Day has come and gone and well, the sons of Ireland are basking in the glow. When I think of Ireland I think a lot of colorful Irish expressions like, 'Top of the morning to ya,' 'Kiss the barney stone,' 'May the road rise to meet ya,' 'May you be in heaven an hour before the devil knows you're dead,' 'I'd like to smash you in the face with my shillelagh,' 'Danny-boy,' 'Begorra,' 'Wail of the banshee,' and 'Whiskey for the leprechauns, whisky for the leprechauns.' But the expression I think most people identify with the Irish, is, of course, the luck of the Irish.
The luck of the Irish. Sure. Let's say you're in a pub somewhere in Ireland, oh, anywhere in Ireland, some guy comes up to you and says, 'Hey is that a bomb on you I hear ticking?' And then BAM!!! Your small intestines are on the ceiling and your brains are on your car across the street. That's the luck of the Irish for ya, who's kidding who, okay?
Let's talk about the bad luck of the Irish, all right? How about this, POTATO FAMINE!! How about that? It scares them, doesn't it? Well, it should. That's why they came here in the first place. So they wouldn't have to work in the potato fields. That's why they became politicians, priests, and cops. Luck? Gimme a break.
(he gets more and more worked up as he continues)
I got a friend, his name is Dan Sullivan, he's Irish as they come. We used to drink together a lot. After two drinks, he would look like an Irish pirate. You know? You think he had luck? In one day he got his car stolen, and the stupid, he had no insurance, and no license, and he gets locked up for being drunk. And after that, he takes off for someplace like India or Nepal, or someplace like that. And his mother dies, ya know, so they wire him to tell him to come to the funeral. It's his mother's funeral, that's all. And he's in India or Nepal, sitting squat-legged listening to some sacred cow. So he comes back and he gets stopped at U.S. Customs for trafficking illegal drugs, not holding, he's trafficking. I mean, here's this guy Sullivan, his old lady kicks off, he gets popped at the border and he's sitting on fifty pounds of black Tibetan finger hash and two keys of slam. Now that's not bad luck, that's DUMB luck. I don't think luck has anything to do with it, I don't think he has any brains at all. First of all, he's drunk, then he's a junkie. I don't know what's worse! Don't ask me, ask Sullivan! And what happens?! He calls me up and says, 'Hey man, I got busted at the border. I need five grand bail.' I said, I said, 'Five grand man!? Hey man, I've never even seen five thousand dollars in my life, so don't ask me for it, man, why don't you ask your mother!!' (aside) Which was a dumb thing for me to say because his mother just died. (returns to his loud tirade) Right now, I got this drunken Irish junkie who wants to kill me because of what I said about his mother being in terminal dreamland! Oh pal. One thing! One thing!!! They love their mothers, boy, oh they love their mothers. It's momma this, momma that. (starts flailing his arms wildly in the way only John Belushi could) Oh my Irish mother! Ireland must be heaven, because my mother.. aauugghhh! Aaauugghhh!!! (as he flails he nearly slams his head on the desk and then falls off his chair, still screaming)
Jane Curtin: Well, that's the news. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow."

Erin go Braugh

There’s an old saying that goes: On Saint Patrick’s Day there are two kinds of people in this world; those who are Irish, and those who wish they were.”

Middle class, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP), kids growing up in the suburbs often feel like they lack a sense of identity. They want to feel like they belong to something. School spirit does a good job of fulfilling this need for some high school kids. Others end up in gangs or race/hate groups.

I was fortunate enough to wind up thinking that “Lutheran” was my ethnic group. A lot of that was due to Minnesota author Garrison Keillor and his Prairie Home Companion Show. But for a long time I was convinced that I was as Irish as they came. Loved green, listened to the Irish rock band U.2., drank Irish Coffee.

Since I was a History major, I researched our family’s background as much as I could. Much to my dismay, “Mallory” wasn’t such an Irish name after all. In the first place, there have been Mallorys over here since the 1600’s and like most WASPs, we’re pretty watered down- a little Dutch, a little English, some German, and so on.

In fact, Mallory is Scotch-Irish. These were Presbyterian Scotts that the Episcopal English resettled in Ireland to help control the Catholics. This made sense, the Mallory coat of arms is a red rampant lion on a yellow field, just like the Scottish flag. No tartan though, no clan, the lion wears a white or silver collar. That symbol meant that they served the English crown.

As a matter of fact, the name Mallory wasn’t even English originally. They came over in the Norman invasion with William the Conqueror. That means that their origins were French. In fact, “Mal~Lorie” originally meant something like “son of unlucky.”

Desperate to somehow identify with the poor, downtrodden, noble and voraciously independent people of the emerald isle, I turned to my mother’s side of the family. Sure enough, the Rielly’s were my ticket to an Irish pedigree.

There was even a legend about my grandfather inheriting a castle in the motherland, but not being able to afford to pay the back taxes on it. Grandpa drove trucks in Detroit, his father had been a captain on the great lakes. And wouldn’t you know it? When my great-grandfather came to America from Canada, he changed his name to Rielly from the more Irish, “O’Rielly,” like the auto parts store. He did it because he wanted to be an American, not just another Irishman.

I let that set in. As I got older, I appreciated that sentiment much more. Why try to be something you’re not? And, why not be happy to be part of this new, unique, even if it is homogenized nationality, this melting pot, America? Bill Murray (note Irish surname) said it well in the movie “Stripes,” when he said “We’re mutts, our people were kicked out of every decent country in the world.”

So, I’m not so Irish, and I’m not Irish-Catholic. As a matter of fact, I don’t even like the taste of Guinness Stout. But today, like everybody else I’ll still wear green, and if I can talk my wife into it I’ll even try to make some corned beef and cabbage.

So, in that spirit, here’s a few of my favorite Irish jokes, presented for your holiday merriment;

The Irish say that St. Patrick chased the snakes out of Ireland, what they don't tell you is that he was the only one who saw any snakes!

"Why do you Irish always answer a question with a question?" asked President Franklin D. Roosevelt. "Do we now?" came New York Mayor Al Smith's reply.

One of the best lines in Mel Gibson’s movie ‘Braveheart’ was this one- "In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to God." The other one I can’t print here.

Q. What is Irish diplomacy?
A. It's the ability to tell a man to go to hell. So that he will look forward to making the trip

Pat and Mike were coming home drunk, they stumbled up the country road in the dark.

"Faith, Mike” Pat said, “we've stumbled into the graveyard and here's the stone of a man lived to the age of 103!"

"Glory be, Patrick” said Mike, “and was it anybody we knew?"

"No,” answered Pat, “'twas someone named 'Miles from Dublin'!"

An Irish priest and a Rabbi were a car accident. They both got out of their cars and stumbled over to the side of the road.

"Oy vey! What a wreck!" said the rabbi.

"Are you all right, Rabbi?" asked the priest.

"Just a little shaken." said the rabbi. The priest pulled a flask of whiskey out of his jacket and offered it to the rabbi.

"Here, drink some of this. It will calm your nerves." He said.

The Rabbi took the flask and drank it down and said, "Well, what are we going to tell the police?"

"Well," the priest said, "I don't know what your aft' to be tellin' them. But I'll be tellin' them I wasn't the one drinkin'."

And of course, there’s the old stand by: How do we know that Christ was Irish?

Because he was 33 still lived at home and didn't have a job. He hung out with 12 buddies he went fishing with. And He thought his mother was a virgin and she thought He was the son of God.

There are those who wish they were Irish, and those who know better.