Month: March 2015

Traditional Catholic Prayer to Saint Brigid

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Saint Brigid.
You were a woman of peace.
You brought harmony where there was conflict.
You brought light to the darkness.
You brought hope to the downcast.
May the mantle of your peace cover those who are troubled and anxious, and may peace be firmly rooted in our hearts and in our world.
Inspire us to act justly and to reverence all God has made.
Brigid you were a voice for the wounded and the weary.
Strengthen what is weak within us.
Calm us into a quietness that heals and listens.
May we grow each day into greater wholeness in mind, body and spirit.

Amen.

(From: http://saintbrigids.org/reflections/prayers/)

Welsh Proverbs

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“Tri chysir henaint: tân, te a thybaco.”

Translation: “Three comforts of old age: fire, tea and tobacco.”

“Dywed yn dda am dy gyfaill, am dy elyn dywed ddim.”

Translation: “Speak well of your friend; of your enemy say nothing.”

“Deuparth gwaith yw ei ddechrau.”

Translation: “Starting the work is two thirds of it.”

Source: http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?2364-Some-Welsh-Proverbs

A St. Patrick’s Day Memory

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I’ve always been drawn to the Irish, all Celts really. The Irish captured my heart throughout childhood and college until my spirit finally fled to Wales. Today is St. Patrick’s Day, though and because of that, I will tell you one or two of my favorite St. Patrick’s Day college stories:

I went to college in a college town. Small semi-rural community with two colleges, fifty-two bars and no curfew.

One year, as usual I was underage (they raised it on my birthday), so I became the designated driver. We went to Murphy’s on the other side of town. You actually needed a car to get there; the buses didn’t run that far. We sat, they drank, and as the designated driver, I got free Cokes. At some point I was asked for my driver’s license, which I gave to the cute bartender.

He looked at it three times and exclaimed rather loudly, “Why did you give me this?! I can’t serve you!”

“But I’m not drinking!”

I had to leave and the bartender was pretty upset that I took my four friends, who were paying for their drinks, with me.

Green beer was a big thing at my college, but not in the capital where four of us were student teaching. My friend Mike and I whined (and whined) about green beer until the other two piled us into the car and drove us the 72 miles to our college town for green beer, and then back in the wee hours of the morning, but still in time for us to student teach.

We were warmed over yuck but we were there as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as we could manage. All of us that is except for Mike, who had the day off and presumably was still in bed.

🙂

Faith?

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“So if you’re down they push you down, fella, they push you down .” – Calvin Crabill, The Dust Bowl documentary, 2013

This is how I feel with my financial troubles. I know that we’re responsible for our mistakes. I accept that. But when you’re lied to and misinformed add deliberately deceived, how can you escape that? How can you get back up from that?

As for me, I trust in the Lord. Let me be glad and rejoice in your mercy, for you have seen my affliction. Cf. Ps 31 (30):7-8

Laetare Sunday

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Accuracy to this Wikipedia entry, Laetare Sunday is “a day of relaxation from normal Lenten rigours; a day of hope with Easter being at last within sight.”

Weddings can be held today, and in Catholic and Anglican traditions, servants were released for the day to return to their mother churches and/or to see their mothers. It became known as Mothering Sunday.

This is also the day of the Second Scrutiny, the blind man who is given sight (John 9:1-41). The Gospel itself reads, “He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”” (John 9:25).

It’s hard for me to hear this verse without hearing the tune of Amazing Grace in my head. That’s always been one of my favorite songs, and I realize now how despite the blind man’s physical blindness, we all have moments of blindness, moments where our eyes “are opened”, where we can suddenly see clearly. This Scrutiny is the one that I can most identify with. Jesus was always right in front of me, but I couldn’t (or didn’t want to) see Him. When He knew I was ready, he took my blinders off, and now I see.

3-14-15, 9:26

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It is precisely 9:26 on the morning of March 14, 2015, and even non-math nerds know what that means : IT’S PI DAY!

Pi, as described by the linked Wikipedia article is “a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, commonly approximated as 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter “π” since the mid-18th century, though it is also sometimes spelled out as “pi” “

Going out two more places you get: 3.1415926.

As an aforementioned non-math nerd, I have never liked math, but I do like numbers. Not numerology nor do I have any real superstitions concerning numbers, but I like the numbers themselves.

In college when I was studying the teaching of math to elementary students, a basic course that I almost failed, I couldn’t (and still can’t) grasp why 2+2=4 and doesn’t equal 5. I know it’s true and if you put two objects and two objects together and count them, you get four, but in theoretical terms I don’t know why. And if I were being honest, I don’t care why. It just is, and that’s good enough for me.

Everyone knows why six is afraid of seven? (SPOILERS: because 789).

I can spell my name in numbers where each letter of the alphabet had a corresponding number:
11 1 18 5 14.
Or my web page: 7 18 9 6 6 9 14 19. 1 14 4   7 9 14 7 5 18. 19 14 1 16 19.
I did this all through high school to write in code, add my name (and others) on my calculator, add my name and my crush’s name together. Cute teenagery things that I’ll occasionally still do.

My birthday is Dec. 3rd, which is 123, and my oldest son’s is Mar 21st, which is 321. A close friend was born on 8/8/88, and my husband and his sister were born on 7/7 and 12/12, respectively.

I like sevens and threes and when I write numbered lists, they must end with a 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 or 20. It feels wrong otherwise.

I always eat M&M’s in fours. Mini Cadbury eggs too.

I tap my finger four times also, like the knocking in the Master’s head on Doctor Who. And the rum-ba-bum bum’s in the Little Drummer Boy.

When I was younger I used to watch Matlock. One of the clues in a murder was a VHS tape wound to 337 on the counter. It took the whole show to realize that when you looked at the counter upside down, from the victim’s perspective, it spelled LEE, the killer’s name. 337 became my favorite number. I would notice it on the clock randomly. My family would point it out to me. We live near a Rt. 337.

A couple of years ago, and about twenty years after the episode, I was writing in a day planner and I noticed the number 337 in tiny numbers in the upper right hand corner of the calendar box for Dec. 3rd. My birthday is the three hundred thirty-seventh day of the year. How ’bout that?!

337 is my birthday!

Numbers are cool. Math not so much.

I hate to post and run, but I have a berry pie waiting for me for breakfast!

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Obviously, this is dedicated to my friend, J.K. who is a math teacher extraordinaire and who likes math more than should be allowed but it fits her to a T… -square.