Green, white and orange

It is St. Patrick's Day, unless you are a practicing Catholic and care what the Pontiff in the Vatican has to say about St. Patrick's Day. For him, and you, St. Patrick's Day was Friday. Just wanted to make sure the observation of the holiday (holy day) didn't detract from Holy Week (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter).

Where did Hell Saturday go? You know, when Jesus descended into Hell to free the old man (Adam). It appears that Saturday is going to be a nice day. A good day to celebrate the freeing of the old man. The revival of the old man to the new world.

I have two orange sweaters but am afraid that it is going to be too warm for such. Instead, I am wearing a partially green tie under a white cotton sweater. The white is part of the Irish National Flag which separates the Green and the Orange. I'll take the white as my badge to connect the orange of we Protestant Presbyterians who grew up, in earlier generations, on James I's plantations in Ulster and ultimately had to immigrate to the US when the British Parlaiment removed our ancestors' civil rights. The Garys (McGarrys), Pierces, Donnellys, Shields, and the McElroys. I'll connect them to the Green of those Catholic Irish like the Cooleys and those Catholic Baynhams down in Florida.

I do have a theory, if you want to hear it. The Baynhams were supporters of the Stuart kings and queens. There were many Catholics in England during the time of the Tudors and the Stuarts who did not practice, or practiced in private to avoid any problem with the powers that be. There was a Baynham who was involved in the Gunpowder Plot as an emissary to the Pope who was a Catholic. Of course, there had been a Lutheran Baynham who had been burned at the stake for his conscience by Sir Thomas More, when More was Lord Chancellor of England. But many supporters of the Stuarts were private Catholics. And I wonder if the Baynham who supported the Stuart Pretender to the throne, for which our ancestor was exiled to Virginia, might have been a private Catholic. Its possible.

Of course, he might have been a Presbyterian, although less likely, since the Baynhams were predominantly from Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. That is pretty far from Edinborough and the Presbyterian Church. That is pretty close to Wales and all of those Methodists.

Which, of course, is what the Baynhams were in Tennessee and Kentucky. Until my dad married a Baptist and my parents couldn't agree on either denomination and became Presbyterians.

So to effectuate a truce between those warring factions in my ancestry who were Orange Men and the "Green" Catholics, I am wearing white today until it warms up and am forced to remove the white sweater.

I do like St. Patrick. His story was quite interesting. Kidnapped by Irish pirates from his home in Britain. Forced to serve as sheepherder in the green hills of Ireland. Until a voice called him back home. He walked alone through the country until he reaches the coast and a boat setting sail. He hitched a ride home. Where he entered a seminary to become a priest. And returned as missionary to Ireland where, within sixty or so years, completely converted the island and sent missionaries back to Scotland and England and the continent. The real story is more interesting than the child's fable involving some Irish saint taking his stick and kicking all of the snakes out of Ireland, which is what they teach in the public schools these days.

In the future, we will clearly be a much less historically educated culture than we are today. So PC.