Spring Things

This Saturday is St. Patrick's Day and my original plans called for taking the youth group to the parade, not because any of them are Irish (I don't think any of them are), but because it's a parade, and everyone loves a parade. The weather, as often is the case with this parade, it rather threatening, and I'm not feeling all that well. Hence, I had to cancel.

It's not every year that I get the chance to go to this parade. Typically, it's on a weekday that is not given at most jobs, so this would have been a great opportunity.

An Irish friend of mine once told me that he didn't like the St. Patrick's Day parade because the pipe bands marched with Scottish Highland Bagpipes and not Irish Bagpipes. As an Irishman, he didn't like being frequently mistaken for a Scot, and resented the Highland presence in a in a distinctly Irish celebration.

After some research, I discovered that my friend was right. Scottish bagpipes are used in this and most other parades with pipers piping. I also discovered that the reason for this is that traditional Irish bagpipes are played while sitting down. Highland pipes are used in parades because they can be played while standing. It's kind of difficult to march in a parade while sitting down. As someone who's grandmother's maiden name was Livingstone, Scottish bagpipes seem just fine in any setting to me.

As I've mentioned in some recent posts here, our Ascension EasterFest is really shaping up. We've put together some nice posters and postcards. I thought I'd give you a first look at the front of our postcard here (Click on this image for a larger view). On the back, is some more detail about the event itself as well as information about our worship services and contact information. We're all very excited about the EasterFest and are praying that God will do wonderful things through this major seasonal outreach.