AN ERA OF FRIDAYS

Perhaps we have entered an Era in which meditations on the death of Christ is most appropriate, most meaningful, and most helpful.

Perhaps it’s time to obey the gentle and wise words of Jesus:  “Take up your cross and follow me.”    

Our Fridays could be in honor of  His  Good Friday.    Each of the events  of that day could be instructive for us, if we learn about them, think about them, and draw lessons from them.     “Take up your cross” —    Take on the seriousness of the Cross.      Take on the responsiblity for that Cross.   Look inward.  Look around.   Repent.   Repair.   Pray.  

“Take up your cross” —   Jesus must have had a reason for telling us to do that.

There are routine traditions that help us with that, help us to begin our thinking.    There are traditional prayers for Friday.   There is the traditional abstaining from flesh (meat).    And during Lent, there are the traditional Fish Fries:

That’s my hand, with the little ink tattoo that proves I paid for my meal tonight.    I never looked at the design closely before.   It’s little fish and little fish bubbles.   Cute.   

Tonight’s Fish Fry was a happy affair with good friends, two of whom we were treating as a kind of Welcome to the Area, because of their recent move into our neighborhood.     Fish Fries like this are a good thing.

But I don’t think it’s quite what Jesus meant:  “Take up your cross.”      And I was thinking about that when I looked at my “cute little fish” tattoo.    Because, see, I’ve just been reading about some creatures of our oceans.    They’re not “fish,” really, but they got me thinking about what I said in the last posting…..I think we’ve done something that we don’t know how to un-do….

This is our reality too.   These babies are dead, bleeding from the inside, their organs dissolved and diseased by the chemicals that were put into the ocean in such great amounts that they and other species of mammals, fish, and even humans are now dead and dying.   The government has forbidden news reporters to write about the many thousands of dead baby dolphins that lie about on the Gulf shores.   Some thing big has happened.

I just can’t keep my mind on the “cute little fish” on my hand.     I have a Cross to pick up and to help bear…..

But there are so many other reasons….

HIS FOUR-MONTH-NESS

How did you celebrate becoming four months old?

How about a ride on a big boy swing.   In a park.   Across the ocean.  In London, England.

I received the video last week and enjoy swinging along with him.  This is a still shot from that video.

But this will be the last photo of Cooper in these postings for a little while.   Perhaps I’ll have a little picture corner in the right-hand column, just for my own smiles.     I just needed these last three postings about Cooper to remind me how beautiful the world could be…just as, at the same time,  I’m less and less able to ignore how dire the world is becoming.

There is seriousness pressing down on me.     On all of us.   I have no idea how to “make it better.”       I don’t think we can.     I’ll be posting now about some things that we did to ourselves, and how we don’t know how to un-do it.    And then I’ll return to Amos the Prophet to see what message he once had to deliver to the people of this planet.

The world we made is not a playground.  Not really.   We’re not four months old anymore.