Green Snowflakes: The Millennial’s Guide to being Irish

It has come to my attention as a descendant of Irish royalty (on my O’Leary side) and as a self-proclaimed IAP (Irish-American Princess) that all is not well in Irish America.

Firstly, it is the total loss of understanding of the message St. Patrick brought to the Gaels in the 5^th century, the reason why we have a day called St. Patrick’s Day. Patrick died on March 17th in 461AD at the age of 121. This date became a celebration of the miraculous deliverance of the Irish from paganism and the joy of being Irish once you stop banging your head against a wall.

Patricius was born in what is now England to a noble family but as luck would have it was abducted by Irish marauders who took him and his friends back to Ireland where he was enslaved for six years as a shepherd and swineherd. He longed for home and did some serious prayer and repentance for his wayward youth as he gazed up at the stars. Miraculously he was shown in a dream how to escape and make his way back home where he became a monk. He wrote in his memoir that he had a subsequent dream in which the Irish people begged him to return to free them from idolatry.

He was granted permission to go as a missionary with a small team and because of his years of slavery he had an deep understanding of the people and knew just what it took to reach a people steeped in magic who worshiped nature. They enshrined all of nature, the sun, trees, rocks and even snakes which had become a plague. Patrick is credited with ridding the Island of snakes as well as performing many other signs and wonders.

Today the story of St. Patrick’s nearly single-handed conversion of the Irish race is treated as entertainment somewhat like the legend of Hercules or Darth Vader.

The worst of it is that some are saying the holiday is really about celebrating the military victory when Boston saw the last of the English on Evacuation Day which also happened to fall upon March 17th in 1776.  State employees now consider the day a rite of spring to enjoy a paid holiday, drink heavily and wear green beads. They hold parades that would put St. Patrick in high dudgeon were he here now.

It is a difficult question W.W.P.D.? (What would Patrick Do?) Would he march in the parade alongside the likes of Mayor Walsh and Governor Baker? They both refused to march if the Outvets, a homosexual Veterans association, were not allowed to march under their rainbow flag. It has been a brouhaha for years with court cases, appeals and flip flops with the current outcome that sodomites can march under their rainbow flag right along with a St. Patrick impersonator and our young step dancing daughters who have already gotten used to the idea of pervs in their bathroom and public accommodations thanks to Atty. Gen. Maura Healey…so what’s the big deal... and If you don’t like it yer can lump it!

It’s a great day for the Irish…but when you’ve sobered up - study up on the real St. Patrick not the ‘pot of gold at the end of the rainbow’ (follow the money) version.

Chris Noonan Funnell

March 17, 2017

Chris Funnell, Freelance writer, Commonwealth Covenant Keepers, Founder and Director

 

The Lost Boys and Girls of America

by Chris Noonan Funnell

In Cambridge, Massachusetts every third person was born in another country. In summer Boston’s streets are teaming with tourists. Double-decker trolleys and Duckboats navigate what once were cow paths or float on the Charles River. 

An ad for a job fair for one of the touring companies caught my eye. That would be a fun job, I thought and I’d learn a lot about this fascinating city. A friend has given tours for many years and we’d even talked about starting a touring company focusing on the Christian heritage here. In the past few years I’ve heard a lot of interpreters taking liberties with the truth and wanted to present an un-PC tour to vie with haunted happenings, gourmet geeks, Cheers tours and pub crawls. I hope there is hunger for a tour that honors our past so we do not lose respect for the Judeo-Christian foundation that made this city so important. Missionaries were sent out from Boston in the 19^th century and now fruit of their work is returning to repay us from Brazil, Africa and Korea seeing the Church has nearly extinguished its flame.

The first casino is coming and medical marijuana stores are open in Massachusetts; the Boston Bomber heard victim’s statements, apologized to victims, sort of, and praised Allah. Some accepted his apology and even forgave him. For some there was a measure of closure but many are still dealing with too much pain and rage to forgive. The Tsarnaev brothers came to our state lived off the taxpayers and literally tore a hole in the fabric of our city. A book by an investigative reporter is about to be published.

Maximum Harm: The Tsarnaev Brothers, the FBI, and the Road to the Marathon Bombing by Michele McPhee

 What happens in Boston does not stay in Boston.  For good or ill we are still the “Hub of the Universe”, the sending place of academic missionaries and politicians that have changed the world with presidents and personalities. The cream of the crop have come and gone for centuries. The most recent graduates received their commencement admonitions and diplomas and some internationals will stay here and even import their parents and families into a higher living standard while locals feel the squeeze economically and move, pushed out by the Sanctuary City mentality of Boston's Mayor and the Governor.

A generation has been educated never having saluted the flag nor learned patriotic songs and prayers which were said in school before 1963. The courts have redefined marriage, family and the value of human life. Lost boys and girls find life expendable and sexuality, gender and commitment fall into the TBD category because boundaries are disappearing.

Boys refuse to grow up; like Peter Pan, most have no problem with casual sex and sperm donorship while girls press into man’s realm and demand society pay for abortion and even contraception. They are on the verge of tipping the scales and throwing away the freedom others paid for with their blood.

The lost boy of Charleston SC attended a Bible study and at the end shot nine believers in cold blood. The boy was crazed with drugs and should have been restrained rather than enabled by friends and family. How many more are there out there? What is the remedy? I don’t think it is gun control. In fact if there was someone packin’ in that church things might not have been so devastating.

We are now living in a time when insanity is just as much a plague as cancer or diabetes. They are all sicknesses brought on by poor choices either ours or our predecessors. There is a way to actually live victoriously and it is inscribed on walls of our statehouses and universities but has been effectively ignored and replaced by man-made rules. 

It would be grand to see a fleet of tour buses and Duck Boats teaching those facts and parables but the damage is so extensive some believe only God can save our nation now.

We celebrate our Independence in a big way here in Boston but the enemies of the America have hollowed out our freedoms and are removing piece by piece our Constitutional footing aided and abetted by a compromised media with a leftist agenda. The Fifth Column, the government media complex, the entertainment industry and academia have brainwashed our children and stolen their hope and freedom so that blasphemy replaces the patriotic and sacred songs that once unified us.

Here are the lyrics to the cynical paean Take Me to Church perhaps the Charleston shooter or Tsarnaev liked it. The Ellen DeGeneres Show featured a tattooed ballet dancer to this song as lost girls and boys swooned.   

Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life

If I'm a pagan of the good times
My lover's the sunlight
To keep the Goddess on my side
She demands a sacrifice
To drain the whole sea
Get something shiny
Something meaty for the main course
That's a fine looking high horse
What you got in the stable?
We've a lot of starving faithful
That looks tasty
That looks plenty
This is hungry work

No masters or kings when the ritual begins
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
Only then I am human
Only then I am clean
Amen. Amen. Amen

Songwriters
BYRNE, ANDREW HOZIER

Published by
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reliv Barista School comes to Boston

https://upcomingspecialevent.blogspot.com/

How I became a Reliv Barista

In May of 2014 a giant began stalking my husband and me. Like Goliath he had a loud voice, towered over us and threatened our life as we knew it. The giant's name was not Goliath but "Third stage Cancer". This giant had stalked and taken many family members on both sides. A team of doctors presented a plan that would take the better part of a year. A few months before the diagnosis we had found Reliv which worked wonders for my moods and energy level. During Dave's treatment of radiation, chemo and surgery I became his "Reliv Barista" adding Fiberstore and Innergize to Reliv Now shakes and making sure he took extra LunaRichX capsules.
We always told the doctors and nurses about Reliv products and showed them the ingredients and studies. They have been impressed with Dave's strength throughout ileostomy surgery and 8 grueling cycles of chemo. His surgeon said "There was no downside to taking it."  Reliv helped Dave stay strong and gave him the energy and strength that he needed to get through his treatment. Today, Dave is happy and healthy and looking forward to what life has to offer. 
Dave has used LRX capsules to make a paste to apply on skin lesions with great success.
I plan to keep telling everyone I can about Reliv and highly recommend the Reliv Now shakes and LRX to anyone with a cancer diagnosis who’s going through chemo. It will definitely help give them the strength and energy needed for a quicker recovery.

Chris Funnell

P. S. Contact my website to learn about the optimum nutrition, epigenetics, Lunasin and the new Fit3 program. www.goodnews.reliv.com

My latest Column published by the New Boston Post

http://newbostonpost.com/2017/01/19/buyers-and-sellers-of-bitter-butter/

Sometimes you have to mercilessly edit essays due to space. Editors also are realists about attention spans.
The above links to what the New Boston Post published and below my full article which this blog allows me to print in full.

Buyers and Sellers of Bitter Butter 2017

By Chris Noonan Funnell

The Bitter Butter Award of 2017 goes to...drum roll please… Georgia Representative John Lewis for refusing to attend the Inauguration of the 45^th President of the United Sates and using his platform as a civil Rights icon to stir up dissent and delegitimize the election and Trump’s presidency setting a poor example for his party and younger generations who need to see democracy work.

Betty bought some bitter butter, but the bitter butter was too bitter for the better batter, so she bought some better butter for the bitter batter and made the bitter batter better!

Spoken quickly this tongue twister was useful to impress small children with my verbal skills. Teaching art for nearly a decade gave me a front row seat on the state of the American child and family. I have seen the frustration of a child who could not find a crayon to match her skin color and made a point of ordering the multi-cultural art supplies that are now available; in January our art lessons included making posters about MLK. Children are more malleable and accepting of differences but they also pick up neighborhood tensions and attitudes like sponges.  When adults set a good example of fair play children follow. When teachers and authority figures cry foul everyone takes sides and division occurs.

It happened after the presidential election in 2000, and unfortunately it is happening again, as Democrats contest the election results and threaten to boycott the Inauguration of the President-Elect Donald Trump.

Snowflakes, youths unable to accept the election results, fuss and whine and plot to disrupt the Inaugural festivities. The adults and senior members in the losing party instead of setting a good example add to the hostile climate lead by civil rights icon and long time Representative from Georgia, John Lewis.  Lewis’s glory days were in the violent racial struggles in the South of the 1960’s when as a young man he marched with Martin Luther King. Perhaps Lewis imagines he must lead a march today against Donald Trump, who in his view is the illegitimate winner causing some to chant “Not my president!”.

What has happened to the peaceful transition of power which America has modeled for the world since its beginning? We did not see this when Obama was elected in 2008 nor 2012 despite the bitter disappointment on the right. That is why I felt the need to call out Rep. Lewis for his bad example and confer upon him the Bitter Butter Award of 2017.

Back on Jan. 20, 2001 when George W. Bush began his first term there had been an extended battle for the presidency and ballots were being hand-counted in Florida as the nation looked on. It came down to a Supreme Court decision in favor of Bush who (like Trump) had won the electoral vote. Al Gore won the popular vote though some have disputed those results as well. A few sore losers have never gotten over that court ruling and never gave Bush a chance. Instead, partisan (and racial) bitterness has continued to plague politics even though in 2008 America elected its first black President, Barak Obama, and re-elected him in 2012.

In the aftermath of the Bush election I yearned for the kind of eloquence Dr. King was noted for to soothe and inspire those adults who took offense during the extended and contentious ballot re-count in 2000.  I took some time out to jot down some thoughts under the influence on my drug of choice, caffeine, at a bookstore coffee shop. While waiting for something profound to percolate up with consolation and healing for my irate, disconsolate African-American compatriots, my eyes fell on a poetry display. If only I could soothe angry, frayed emotions with a poem or an essay as persuasive as the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; a soft answer to turn away wrath…a bridge over troubled waters.

But what did I behold sitting in suburbia without a person of color in sight but the cover of a poetry book by Nikki Giovanni. I remembered her writings from college; her poems sometimes called for revolution and promoted black liberation. She has accumulated over 20 honorary degrees for her poetry which expresses hate such as "We would also suggest blinding or the removal of at least two eyes from one of the heads of all albino freaks". As I began to read one, two, then a third poem, I suddenly felt I was in the wrong aisle. Ms. Giovanni was not into bridge building, but was actually calling for violence, vengeance and reverse racism…bitter butter!

I put the book back on the shelf and the bridge collapsed into a sea of negativity. Instead of soothing words I got my Irish up. How many Bettys are buying this bitter butter? How many spread it on their toast each morning and serve it to their kids like they did during “the Troubles” in Ireland? The recipe for peace and progress calls for better ingredients like those MLK called for: wisdom, justice, hope and non-violence.

Sad to say, The First Black President, Barack Obama did not follow MLK’s recipe for a melting pot and the beacon of liberty to the world. A recipe that blended humanity rather than divided and inflamed passions and created an anti-establishment movement in which police are characterized as racist and assassinated . Perhaps as a student Obama was all too familiar with Ms. Giovanni’s Bitter Butter.

The Justice which MLK was calling for in his “How Long?” speech of 1965 is neither valued nor aimed for by the BLM movement. They have built up a false narrative that incites class warfare and lawlessness.

 President Obama used his January 13, 2011 Tucson speech to lecture the nation about goodness. “… Let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other  more carefully,” This from the same person who proclaimed in his determination to foist the Health Care monstrosity on the nation…"if they bring a knife to this fight, we'll bring a gun."

In 2016 we saw racism flare-ups as the "Black Lives Matter" mantra was continually repeated since 2013 when George Zimmerman was acquitted in the death of a black youth and later, in Ferguson MO when a black youth died at the hands of police. President Obama never failed to use these tragedies to call for more gun control even though the greatest gun violence occurs in cities like Chicago, NYC and Detroit where gun laws are strictest. How long will these harangues go on? Not long…thanks to the peaceful transition of power this week.

So the 2017 Bitter Butter Award goes to Rep. John Lewis for stirring up strife and smearing not only Trump and his presidency but the legitimacy of the votes of more than 60 million Americans who elected Trump.  Although Rep. Lewis has had a long and arguably distinguished career on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement he does not win the Lifetime Achievement Bitter Butter Award; that distinction goes to Barack Obama for his consistency and dedication, causing a racial melt down in our nation.

As we go forward with a new President and cabinet let’s hope there is less taste for the bitter butter of racism coming from all sides, particularly from the media.

Chris Noonan Funnell

Freelance writer/ Columnist                  Jan. 18, 2017

Transgender  Transparency  

                                                                

What is behind the push to embrace transgenderism? Is it not to force everyone who lives in unquestioning acceptance of their God-given gender identity to be as confused and tormented as those who live with extreme discomfort in their own skin?

Is it not that those who question God about His ability to be God as absurd as the clay pot critiquing the potter? They are dissatisfied with how they were made, too short, too bald, too hairy, too unattractive, too masculine, too feminine; where does this gender dysphoria end?

Our backslidden culture has toppled off its Judeo-Christian Foundation. It has become politically correct to question God and even his existence. The rebel says out of understandable bitterness and pain, “If you are a good God, why did you allow me to be molested and abandoned by the people who were supposed to take care of me? Surely a good God would not leave me in such a horrible situation, so I conclude you are either a cruel or ambivalent God and I must make my own decisions from here on out. Your rules and boundaries don’t apply in my domain.”

A compassionate society can relate to the cause of this pain and turmoil but not cave in to the illogical response to throw the baby out with the bath water. Both those who insist on mainstreaming perversion as well as those who persecute those with gender dysphoria are wrong.  We as a Commonwealth seek justice and protection and health for all people, however this bill known as the Bathroom Bill will force all of us to live in confusion and to wear a costume of compliance with a resentment that will result in greater friction and violence toward those who unjustly and selfishly force their fellow citizens into psychological contortions, extreme discomfort and anxiety for those women who have been abused to be confronted with males in their locker room or restroom.

Biology does occasionally make mistakes but even the genetic blooper is not God’s fault. The Creator of the original design but sin and selfishness have corrupted and degraded our DNA as the study of epigenetics now shows.

A compassionate society as our commonwealth aspires to be should support those who are confused but never conform to their confusion as the Bathroom Bill demands of the majority and even victimizes the most vulnerable. This is democracy run amuck and a tyrannical misuse of the law.  

To protect our most vulnerable citizens and children we must oppose HB 4253 (formerly HB 1577). 

 

Chris Noonan Funnell

May 11, 2016

TV Turn-Off Reflections from 2002

While our TV was gathering dust on National TV Turn-Off Week our household was peaceful and reflective. Millions of households all over America have participated each April for the past eight years. My fourteen year-old, a Turn-Off veteran, took the News article in which he and I were interviewed on the “Real Turn-Off” going on in our home to English class. Not too often does a kid get to bring to school a newspaper article about himself with color photo for a current events assignment.
For those of you who read the article and wondered if we completed the week – hey, no problem! We have the TV turn-Off thing down. The trick is to start when your children are young by reading to them or playing games.
When your children get to that difficult time known as the teen years, they will be accustomed to applying self-control and hopefully have learned life can be enjoyable without staring into a screen for hours on end.
Our society has become entertainment-oriented instead of one based on the work ethic of past generations. In the process history is filtered through this lens and is being rewritten for the screen at laser speed. Since schools have substituted social studies for history very little actual fact is being transmitted. The founding fathers have been viewed as irrelevant “dead white guys”. When you expunge their memory and the values that motivated them from history books, there isn’t a lot left to talk about except feelings, and not very good ones at that. Some colleges have majored on the mistakes that were made like slavery and displacing Indians without teaching what was done right.
Recent results of testing on history in our public schools showed only 18% proficiency in fourth grade and it goes downhill from there. Last week I substitute taught for that grade level and was reminded that this is the time we learn about the birth of our nation. I enjoyed reading a picture book about George Washington and learned he wasn’t known as a particularly a good speller as a kid. By the time he was 14 he had an assignment to copy and perform an astounding list of 110 European rules for good behavior which I wish I could get my son to adopt. “Undertake not what you cannot perform, but be careful to keep your promise”. Come to think of it, he nailed that one on TV Turn-Off Week!
After we plugged in the television I found myself pressing into the couch instead of my study of the Book of Revelation which I had gotten halfway through along with commentaries by a man who believes in the Rapture, which is the subject of the popular “Left Behind” series.
I caught the final segment of a PBS series “Frontier House”, a documentary about three modern day “families” taking on a challenge to live like pioneers for six months. Coincidentally it validated concerns I expressed about our losing our national edge and becoming soft. They were evaluated by experts and found severely lacking in firewood to get through the long Montana winter. Though the menfolk seemed to be enjoying all the chopping and building, kind of like Tim the Toolman circa 1880’s, the women were not happy with their role of non-stop cook and washer without indoor plumbing. One woman was counting the days until her return to the world of push-button appliances. For this wealthy couple it was only a game because they knew a mansion was being prepared for them in California. For the original settlers they probably hoped for a mansion waiting in heaven.
Their children had adjusted to the one room schoolhouse and one boy was totally lit up with excitement about a hands-on archaeological dig. Weeks later, after returning to the twenty-first century that boy played almost exclusively with video games. The girls who had been at home on the range were shown lazing in their hot tub overlooking Malibu as they reminisced about their pioneer life which didn’t seem so boring after all compared to life in a mansion. They had gained the perspective to perceive their luxury as overkill. “How many times can you go to the Mall?” one sister asked the other.
Locally another experiment supported my statement that statistically youth today would not understand why they should protect the Constitution. Proof came when two “big guns” of democracy visited a class recently at Boston Latin Academy. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has been conducting a “Dialogue on Freedom” program since 9/11 and invited Senator Ted Kennedy along for the ride since he is one of the generals leading the charge for education reform, albeit seated backwards on his horse.
The Boston Latin students credited Socrates and not the Judeo-Christian tradition for inspiring the Founding Fathers. Here in the Athens of America as the two Kennedy’s sifted through the thinking of post-modern teens looking for evidence of the moral infrastructure that under girds our Constitution and The Declaration of Independence, no trace of biblical values was found. Instead they uncovered the fact that truth lies buried in a shallow grave of misinformation.
Kids today have been robbed of the facts and moral guidance they need to carry the banner of freedom into the future. TV shows mock and malign traditional values and serve up heavy doses of cynicism. Jerry Springer-type shows proliferate while decent shows are canceled. The patriots who established our democracy and those who died to maintain it lived by values that are being questioned and silenced today. The war on terrorism seems to have taken a back seat to political correctness as biased politicians and pundits take aim at Judaeo-Christian Values and Tea Party Patriots even using the IRS to silence what not so long ago were voices for American Values.
In the voting booth or while holding the remote control we are free to choose. It is as easy as pushing a button. TV turn-off is about lifting our eyes up to see the big picture.
Chris Noonan Funnell, May 18,2002 updated April 26, 2014

My Irish American Princess Cowgirl Hat

St. Patrick’s Day 2015 was just about a month before my husband David’s final step in his yearlong cancer treatment, the ileostomy reversal, and removal of the ostomy bag. 

No more bag and no more chemo which at intervals had to be administered by a battery powered pump attached to a special port in his chest.

We had come through the worst winter on record in Boston with several feet of snow dumped on our driveway which took a community effort to keep clear. One day I saw a train of military dump trucks passing our house. I had to go out in the sub-zero weather to see what was going on. The Governor had sent the National Guard to the head of our street in Medford which always has drainage issues. 

All day they carted off loads of snow to a nearby ball field converting it to a snow farm. We thought that the snow mountain would never melt until July and leave a mud sty fit for pigs rather than a playing field for youth soccer. To our surprise in April things were back to normal. The March winds were blowing “In like a lion…”and drying out the moisture.

We decided to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day last year by going out to an actual movie theater using two AMC passes gifted to us for Christmas, by a sweet young couple in our church along with a crisp hundred dollar bill which we’d designated to go out for dinner after “Snowmageddon” and the chemo-trails were behind us.

I rarely went out during that time but on a trip to Christmas Tree Shop I grabbed up the last Kelly green cowgirl hat with rhinestone tiara design. I have always wanted a horse and used to have an Annie Oakley outfit when I was small. Well, so far I got the hat but not the horse; still workin’ on that dream.

I decided to wear my green hat on St. Patty’s day to the movie theater and then out for a celebratory pint of Guinness. My WASP husband, Dave, who hasn’t a stitch of Irish in his DNA has learned to go along with my shenanigans, green nail polish and all.

 We entered the new Assembly Row Theater and took the escalator to the top floor only to be sent back down to turn in our passes like peons for admission tickets.  (This did not set well with the princess but she determined not to let anything rain on her parade).

We had chosen American Sniper out of the several films offered and we were not disappointed. It is a great story about a true American hero who served in Iraq. He was a uniquely skilled marksman with a heart. As a consequence he suffered debilitating PTSD. But when he returned to his wife and family he understood it and used his coping skills to help others. War changes people and he did not return the same person, his widow explained.

Neither has my husband returned to be the same person after his long battle with colo-rectal cancer, but he is gaining strength, battle tested, is leaner, more focused and is cancer free! What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

It was a windy day March 17^th 2015 and we had something to celebrate. I hoped we’d go try one of the new restaurants in the trendy section on the Mystic River but after the movie Dave was ready to go home. So after the matinee the prince and princess headed for the parking lot. I was still wearing my bright green tiara hat when a gust of wind ripped off my crown and I surged forward to catch it as it rolled along the ground. Dave quickly stated he would not chase after it in his condition. I decided I would have to be the one to retrieve it but in mere seconds it had rolled around the corner and my heart despaired of catching it in my high heeled boots.

A tall, dark young man had come out of the theater behind us and must have been inspired by American Sniper because he quickly assessed the situation and shot off after the hat saying ”I got this!” and chased after the renegade princess hat which was now rolling down Grand Union Boulevard. The cross wind had taken it down the middle of the street like a stampeding bull with cowboy in hot pursuit. We watched standing in amazement in the frigid wind. Dave was so cold he went ahead to warm up the car while I watched my young hero finally round up the runaway hat, turn back catching his breath after running a city block for a stranger.  I had time to get my gloves off and dip into my wallet to pull out a fiver for the young hero. As he handed me the slightly bruised hat I thanked him profusely offering the bill which he refused at first. I detected a slight accent and somehow suspected he could actually use the small token of my appreciation.

 “Please have a beer on me!” I insisted like the princess I felt to be after such a kindness. He took it with an ever so slight continental bow. The IAP (Irish American Princess) never made it to the pub that St. Patty’s Day but she thinks she might have encountered an angel.

Chris Noonan Funnell                                             March 3, 2016