There are many debates about Saint Patrick, and many various ways in which he is remembered. There will be a lot of people #SensingMeaningfulness through remembering ancestral links. Perhaps there will also be a lot of self medication as people grasp onto the day to counter unexamined feelings of alienation and lack of meaningfulness.
Celebration is good though! And there is much to celebrate. Whilst enjoying the feed of shamrocks, guinness and nostalgia which will emerge today, why not take some time out to practice #SensingChallenge too.
Intrigued? Patrick wrote a letter around one and a half thousand years ago. You can read the text, and explore how he thought and felt all that time ago. It is a heartfelt letter condemning slavery and declaring himself alien to all who tolerate it.
His anger burns through the screen now as I read the text. This is not a hate letter though. In paragraph 4 his frustration with the whole situation stands out to me. His love, and desire, that all should be free from slavery is easy to miss. If you miss it though, then the letter reads judgementally. He makes himself alien to the slave owning status driven culture he lives in, but his desire is that all should experience the freedom of the way of Christ. All should be free from slavery, whether to another human or to the vice of avarice that makes us into slavers.
Read for yourself here.
https://confessio.ie/etexts/epistola_english#
We still haven’t sorted the problem. From the clothes we wear to the services we buy, it is always most difficult to recognise the injustice taking place under our noses.
Where does our identity lie? In stuff or in experiential capital?
In one nationality, or in a way which transcends identity politics?
What binds us in a vice, and what builds us up to exercise freedom with integrity?
And as well as all the abstract reflection, there is still a very real challenge.