March | 2016 | Writing with Spirit

March 25, 2016

GOOD FRIDAY: A HOLY NIGHTMARE

I hesitate to write this, because some of my church friends read my blog and I’m trying to be hyper-pastoral during Lent. (Not really, that’s a lost cause.) But I’ll just say that for me, Good Friday is not fun. It produces anxiety nightmares.

The past few years, I’ve been asked to put together the Good Friday service at our church, and — not being a natural fit for me — this is super stressful. It involves lots of logistics like wooden bowls and hammers and fake swords and costumes and scripts and lights and microphones. And people. Lots of people who are volunteers (like me) with busy lives and broken computers and small children. They are creating skits and writing songs and sewing soldier’s costumes and building wooden crosses.

I’m sure this can be exciting for some personality types, but not mine. I like adrenaline as much as the next person, but it’s less trouble just to have an extra cup of caffeinated tea.

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Worst of all, because of the time and emotional investment I put into this service, I tend to abandon my Lenten practices. I don’t have time for my walk. I get home late from rehearsal, so I eat dinner after my evening fast is supposed to have begun. I haven’t done my “daily” centering meditation but a handful of times this whole forty-day Lenten period. And don’t ask about my “healthy eating” pursuit.

You probably see right through this rant: I’m simply using preparations for the service as an excuse to drop my spiritual practices. So I’m disingenuous, too. On top of my self-pity, self-absorption, disorganization, procrastination, and ego-driven perfectionism.

And you know what? It’s all OK. It’s all taken care of — because of Good Friday.

All my foibles, short-comings, broken places — the ones I know about and the ones I don’t yet acknowledge. They are all set right by Good Friday.

A Horrific Story

Good Friday is a nightmare story, a horrific story of betrayal, abandonment, and murder.

Jesus’s friend Judas betrayed him and turned him over to an angry mob — for money. Religious leaders wanted Jesus killed because he threatened their power base and money schemes. The governor Pontius Pilate abdicated responsibility for murdering Jesus, even though he knew him to be innocent. He blamed others. Three times, one of Jesus’s best buddies denied even knowing him, just hours after promising Jesus he would follow him to the grave. Soldiers and guards mocked and spit on Jesus when he was hanging on a cross, dying.

red Jesus face

So, yes, Good Friday is a nightmare.

But it is a holy nightmare.

Holy Hope

My pastor Matthew writes:

“On Good Friday Jesus took every dark thing we could possibly throw at him: hatred; violence; the corrupt, self-interest of religious and political power; all our falsehoods, prejudice, pride, arrogance and self-protection. Jesus bore all this, but it did not corrupt him. Rather than respond in kind, Jesus swallowed all this evil, overcame it and dis-empowered it. And it killed him.”

A good man, preaching love and peace and care for the poor and the oppressed, was murdered. But as he died, he overcame evil for all of us, and his sacrifice gave us the power to become whole and healthy — holy. That is the holy nightmare of Good Friday.

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And can you believe it? Jesus came back to life three days later. (I know this sounds too good to be true, and choosing heart and hope over logic and skepticism is frowned upon these days.) But I have come to believe it. Jesus swallowed humanity’s darkness, he overcame it, and he lives!

On Easter Sunday, followers of Jesus will celebrate his resurrection and his living spirit that empowers every human to choose love over hate, peace over violence, and light over darkness. There is hope for the world, whether or not you believe in God. God still believes in us — every one of us. Our Creator believes in our goodness and dreams of a world where love wins.

Lenten Rose

https://melanielynngriffin.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/an-easter-message-from-the-great-beyond/

https://melanielynngriffin.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/easter-miracles/

The Presidential Penis

March 4, 2016

Last night, Orange Man tried to reassure the American people about the size of his penis, because this is something polls show is important to voters when it comes to who sits in the Oval Office. I know it’s been on my mind.

He has been doing his best to look like a president since Super Tuesday, even turning his tacky gold-columned private club into the set of a reality TV show and pretending to hold a presidential “press conference” in front of a row of American flags as long as several stretch limos. Fake Orange President let Chris Christie try out for the role of Vice President, but Chris didn’t pull it off too well, instead looking like a seriously seasick victim on the deck of the Titanic.

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The flags helped, but like most Americans I was still wondering, “Yeah, but is he fit to be president? Exactly how big is this guy’s penis?”

Bullies are often trying to compensate for low self-esteem, so I was suspicious – exactly what is he trying to cover up? Calling the other candidates “Little Marco” and “Lyin’ Ted” sure sounds like he’s trying to deflect attention from some, ahem, shortcomings of his own.

And it’s clear he got emotionally stunted somewhere in his childhood, what with his second-grader grumpy faces and fifth-grader eye-rolling and seventh-grader blustering. Could there be physical ramifications?

At any rate, I’m glad he has cleared up this question for us. And definitively, too, because he kept saying, “Believe me,” so it must be true.

The New Vulgar … There Isn’t One

After the show — I mean the debate — Emmy award-winning journalist Bernie Goldberg complained to Bill O’Reilly on FOX “News” about Orange Man’s behavior, saying that it was inappropriate and vulgar for a presidential debate, and what about kids watching with their families? (To say nothing of adults who might have mistakenly tuned in to hear about policies.)

But O’Reilly was still all giggly and glowing from pandering to Orange Man after the debate — “Let me know if I’m too hard on you, OK, Donald?” — and so he told Mr. Goldberg to get over it, times have changed, and talking about your penis in a presidential debate isn’t vulgar at all.

Welcome to America, 2016.

photo courtesy ABC News

Writing with Spirit