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This might be part 1… I have tons more to write about my trip, but this just seemed to end naturally without extra fluff…so I will write later about more…this writing just feels my gratitude in life…

Home Pilgrimages and Holidays, 17Feb… maybe part 1

To say my pilgrimage to my hometown has been an amazing trip, totally cannot capture in words my experiences… It is home, it is my “mecca”, when I need an “home fix” there is no substitute. I have visits to waterfalls, to family, to nearest and dearest friends…
And it is a week of holidays! Including a school holiday, Saturday was St Valentine’s day, Sunday my Mom’s birthday, Monday President’s day, Tuesday my mom-in-laws birthday and Mardi Gras time Fat Tuesday. Ash Wednesday and Chinese New Year is Thursday…   And Christmas, it’s still Christmas in my heart, in the snow (over foot and a half), in my house, and at my friends’ house last night where I stopped for the most wonderful faith and family discussion… they are the most marvelous newly refreshed but long term couple…newly married after rediscovering love after years and years apart…these lovely folks still had their Christmas tree up, we spoke about Jesus’ love, God’s universe, and all the thorns in between. And they were pre-making St Patrick’s Day cookies. Now that’s my kind of holiday life…all at once.

St Patrick’s Day is every day for me, I am half Irish and half Bohemian…I cling to my fortunate life…I am truly blessed. And holidays are icing on the cake of life.

St Patrick’s Day does fit me for a connection that I just made, my good friend and I talked about how blessed we are that we lack the “demons”… How we are blessed and how we see others who struggle with the demons within. I have been gathering brainstorming stuff to write a major piece on the devil…but haven’t gotten there yet…I deny the devil any place in my heart…I see it in others…I questioned-question whether the devil existed-exists…I wondered-wonder if the devil is just the convenient scapegoat of peoples actions and flaws…BUT…if the scriptures are to be believed as a whole, then I can’t deny the devil’s existence…and yes, I see the devil in the world…and I see the self centered arrogance and selfishness of denying God, denying goodness….as evil forces… 
So yes, St Patrick in my heart year-round does fit me…but not just for my fair complexion, but because St Patrick is said to have driven the snakes out of Ireland…and God has driven the evil devil snakes out of my heart…I am naive to say this…I am likely blasphemous for denying the devil exists in me…I am childlike in my new acceptance of Jesus…but I am faithful to God…and if nothing else, I am to glorify the good works HE has done for me, to me, in me. I AM a child of God, He will mold me to be me.