The Rev. Jason Poling is the Pastor of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville.
Those of us in the clergy have a strained relationship with the holidays enjoyed by the rest of our neighbors. Christmas for me is the day I recover from staying up late assembling Christmas presents after getting home from the midnight Christmas Eve service. Easter is the day I get up early to throw lamb in the oven so that after preaching I can serve it to several dozen international students, then go home and collapse. Thanks to an ill-considered dalliance with campaign politics in my youth I always associate July 4th with an all-day sweat earned by running up and down parade routes handing out stickers and candy. Even my birthday is usually a disappointment, falling as it does in the middle of December when nobody, including me, has time or mental bandwidth for anything but the demands of the holiday season.
So when my kids asked me last week what my favorite holiday was, I was glad to have St. Patrick's Day coming up right around the bend. What's not to like? I do have a wee bit of Irish ancestry on my father's father's mother's side, not that any of us really needs it to celebrate March 17th. Like St. Patrick himself, I'm a good Trinitarian, so I offer my fellow In Good Faith readers these three points of appreciation. I begin with the fare.
The first beer I drank outside of a college dormitory was enjoyed at an Irish pub in Washington, DC after some friends and I had made the trek from New England to mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Sitting with a pint in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I felt very grown up as I assaulted my senses with dark, rich smells and flavors. At the time I wasn't aware that Guinness is actually less alcoholic than the keg swill to which I had grown too quickly accustomed; I just knew that it was a beverage that demanded respect, if not a knife and fork.
Since that day I have had Guinness in innumerable cities, from the sacrilegious joint in San Antonio that served it in a frosted mug to the "English Pub" at Epcot where I was allowed to repair while my wife chaperoned her youth orchestra around Disney World. Invariably I find my fellow Guinness drinkers to be a genial lot, whether they be introverts or extroverts (or progress from one to the other after a few pints). Three months out of college, having fled to St. Paul to avoid the embarrassment of an involuntary separation from my employer in Baltimore, I found solace and fellowship in a few pints and a few games of pool (and indigestion in the White Castle burgers I threw down on the way home).
It's a civilized beverage: Nobody does keg stands or funnels of Guinness, and you don't find sticky half-drunk plastic cups of it lying around on Sunday morning. It's a drink that commands your full attention, and rewards it in kind. The flavors are rich, but subtle; I've tried some celebrated Imperial Stouts and I find them obnoxious and overblown next to a humble pint of Guinness. The stuff makes for a nice stew with your leftover Easter lamb, too.
(I would be remiss if I neglected the ministrations of John Jameson & Sons, whose product joins hot tea with lemon and honey when I have a cold but nevertheless survives the association.)
This year's innovation for me is corned beef: Specifically, that I'm making my own. A colleague raises beef cattle, and in January I happily took delivery of half a cow. The brisket is brining in my refrigerator as I write this, taking on as it has for the past week the contributions of salt, mustard seed, cloves, juniper berries, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, peppercorns and sodium nitrate. The last of these, I learned recently, is not easy to get without ordering it over the Internet, as it is useful not only for curing meats but for making gunpowder as well. (If I'm going to get the FBI to start a file on me, I can think of no nobler cause.)
On Wednesday I will rinse the brisket well and boil it with cabbage and potatoes, and serve it to my friends with Guinness and good cheer.