Good Friday. A difficult day - what an understatement, really, if you think about it. Sun and sudden warmth, a fat bee raising clouds of pollen on the catkins which the blue tits had just vacated after a morning's swinging: all this life, this rebirth contrasts with the stark interior of the church, the bare altar, the cross alone in the middle of it, the brass eagle lectern lying as if in sorrow on the front pew ...
How often have I experienced this strangeness? I suppose for me it's maybe been 36 years since I sang the Reproaches in the Cathedral of The Isles, wondering at the mystery of it all; I can have missed perhaps one Good Friday service since then. And the strangeness is compounded, always, by the unheeding world down the hill, in the town, and nowadays in the online community. It used to upset me; perhaps it's something you just become used to because now I merely observe. And this year, as always, I thought of Auden's poem Musee des Beaux Arts, which points out that suffering is always going on somewhere, unnoticed by all but those most closely involved.
So today I'm thinking about suffering, and about all innocents who suffer despite - or maybe because of - their innocence.
I had the same feeling when I went down into the town after church. It seemed really strange to see everyone carrying on as usual.
ReplyDelete@Ronnie - 'Spare the rod, spoil the child'. There is a level of truth there - I agree often abused, but nevertheless...
ReplyDelete@Blethers - 'Judge not that ye be not judged' comes to mind. You set the example, but you cannot coerce others to follow. God did give mankind freewill which means?
Sorry, folks - Ronnie's a troll who's been hanging around this blog for a while now. I'm going to have to implement total comment moderation till he takes himself somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteAHM - I don't see any judgement whatsoever in this post, unless "unheeding" is judgemental: I consider it a factual comment, no more, no less.
ReplyDelete