Sources of Inspiration: St. Patrick's Breastplate

In my Voice class, we've been working with different texts to read & explore various performance techniques. Working with punctuation in the text, finding the rhythm in the text, etc etc. So, the first text we received and worked on was a poem from the 6th century called St. Patrick's Breastplate. Since its really long, I'll summarize it for y'all & just explain why it was deep to me. Basically, the poem is about St. Patrick arming himself for battle & invoking the power & spirit of God to protect himself. Here is my favorite part of the poem:

Today I put on
God's strength to steer me,
God's power to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye for my vision,
God's ear for my hearing,
God's word for my speech,
God's hand to protect me,
God's pathway before me,
God's shield for my shelter,
God's angels to guard me
from ambush of devils,
from vice's allurements,
from traps of the flesh,
from all who wish ill,
whether distant of close,
alone or in hosts.

I summon these powers today
to take my part against every implacable power
that attacks my body and soul,
the chants of false prophets,
dark laws of the pagans,
false heretics' laws,
entrapments of idols,
enchantments of women
or smiths or druids,
and all knowledge that poisons
man's body or soul.

Since reading this in class, its been rolling around in my mind. Something really hit home with me about it. Just thinking of all the things that make it difficult to be your best self on a day to day basis, there really is a battle for your soul. It is so much easier to do things for you to succumb to the pressures and influences that will eventually knock you off your path, but here St. Patrick is using all of God's glory to arm himself & fight back against whatever forces that can knock him off his path. One of my favorite songs right now (well, all summer basically) is Jeezy's "Put On" & thinking about the message from that joint, I keep merging these two things together. While Jeezy isn't a remarkable lyricist by any stretch of the imagination, he makes powerful music that moves you emotionally. If you match his emotional, powerful music with the detail & imagry of this poem, its really something to live by, in my humble opinion. So, I guess my message through all of this is that when you have to "put on" each day, whatever that means for you, use God's power & strength to guide you & always strive to the best by His example. This way, you'll be protected from other entrapments & closer to the success you're striving for.

Side note: When we read this in class, we read the first part of the poem that I wrote above & our instructor had me read it by myself. So, I read it & put some emotion to it & felt alright about it. Then, the instructor says, "You have a great quality to your voice, I want you to read it like a Southern preacher." (Surprise, surprise) He says this & all the other white students are looking at me like "yeah, that'll be cool", and I had a quick moment where I wanted to be like "Negro please", but instead I understood where he was coming from & got it done. It felt kinda good too, I ain't gonna front. He had the me read the whole thing & anytime it said God, the other folks would shout it out, so it was like revival in the room.

Now, this ain't the first time this has happened to me, but it bugs me out each time it happens, cause that ain't natural for me. I grew up Catholic, our service was quiet & me & my brother fell asleep often. Before I ever went to a Baptist church, I saw comedians on TV & in movies making funny impersonations of those preachers, so that idea of a Baptist preacher never rang true to me. Still to this day, after being in the South for 3 years & going to my fair share of Baptist services, it still feels really funny to me to be like a Baptist preacher. I always feel like I'm joking rather than being true, cause it ain't my truth yet. One of these days, I'll get past it, but thats just another funny ancedote of being a black man to me.

Peace & blessings y'all!