Good Friday

[poliphilo]

The world is very quiet this morning. I guess everyone who can afford it is celebrating the Passion of Our Lord in Ibiza.

I had bad dreams. At one point I was scrambling about on a roof with my daughter and my long-dead grandmother's long-dead little dog; we were stuck up there; we couldn't get down.

It's the arthritis; I ache.

When I was a vicar Good Friday was one of the biggest days in the year. I ran three hour ego-trips "At The Foot Of The Cross", featuring my own empowered preaching and the dreariest hymns in the book.

Jesus died for you! Oh how he suffered! Why don't you care?

Very Mel Gibson.

But very few people came to hear me so I don't suppose I did much harm.

Comments

[aellia.livejournal.com]

Strange how it all starts on Good Friday..the celebrations.
When I was little we had to stay in and be quiet and ate fish.
Easter Egg hunts rule the day now

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"Easter Egg hunts rule the day now"

And a good thing too.

As if life weren't grim enough without us setting aside certain days for full-on penitence and gloom.

[aellia.livejournal.com]

It's good for the soul,so they say :-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I used to believe that....

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

or maybe even some good...
as shakespeare in king john
'aspects are within ,he who
seems is king'...if good could
only come from moments we feel
quite whole (and indeed are
so) there would be little maybe.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I doubt whether my rather histrionic preaching caused anyone to feel whole.

I blush to remember how shrill I was.

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

my little experience with preaching
is that people can take almost anything
form anything and this can be disappointing
when one has made some carefully worded thing
and realizes that the pattern one made was
not received in its intended form at all,
but it can also lead to hearing a good beyond
what was there...some would ascribe that to
the Holy Spirit...but psychologically I suppose
it is also that people need to hear certain
things and when they come to a place with the
hope (unformulated or realized of course
in any sense of 'I want to hear X') they
may very likely hear them even when they
are not spoken but noly perhaps hinted at
or clued...
does that make sense? or perhaps my psychology
is too romantic...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It makes perfect sense.

My sermons were very egotistical performances. It would be nice to think that I was being used by the Spirit in spite of myself.

preaching

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well anyway it is a hope I go on
and not only in sermons which are a
small part of life (happily. asked
a priest when visiting there how
long to preach he said 'I have never
heard a sermon that was too short'
this is now one of my axioms if I am
ever asked to teach homiletics and
another is 'time of preparation should
not excede time of delivery') well but
I think of what st paul who said
that "by the foolishness of preaching
[it is willed where will and power are one
that good come about]"
and his recognition of the foolishness
tbat inheres in it all says much for
the wisdom the man maybe.

Re: preaching

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A problem with preaching is that sermons are required on a regular basis and no-one can guarantee inspiration every time.

How refreshing if once in a while the preacher were to announce, "Actually, I have't got anything to say this week, so lets move on."

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

Yes I think that can reasonably done and
let us incorporate it as a further axiom
for our homiletics course if we are ever
asked (with an appropriate stipend granted
of course) to give one...
I believe it could be put, without
falling into pietism egregiously, in
a slightly softer form...
"Today's Gospel it seems right to me
to allow speak simply for itself, no
additional words come to me , so let us
each hear as we can this that was said--
' whatever whatever whatever'
with immediacy. also it is a hot summer day
and there is no breeze although we have opened
all the windows, but the words will remain
when we are settled in another place and
now let us turn tho that which is our true
work and privelege...[id est the sacrament
of the altar for anyone looking in and not
of this way, it is not a proposal to
rush out to the beach just yet]" or something :)

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about your arthritis, Tony.

I've been thinking about religion this week--understandably, since I'm very immersed in services.

I remember reading Spong saying, "Why would a God want to be worshipped all the time, all that Holy, Holy, Holy stuff?" [paraphrase]

But I remember so well the moment when I fell in love (really, only once, and hard) and I wanted to tell him so much that I couldn't stand it! And then I did.

I guess it's that yearning for connection--like the stupid hunter around here who killed a wild swan who had settled for awhile in one of our lakes--I have a theory that he wanted somehow to possess or understand something beautiful and other-worldly--

I know when I am singing Sanctus, Sanctus I feel the same way I did when I finally told Paul "I love you."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Religion doesn't work for me anymore.

Art does.

Making art.

Watching a great movie, standing in front of a great painting.

Then I make a connection that makes me happy.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure, really, what "religion" is to me anymore. When I go into the quiet church I reorient myself, and remember myself as a girl there, and all those years--but that's the building, and the ritual.

My religion is personal now, and is less and less rather than more--I can't understand anything at church, can't connect.

During Holy Week I feel that lack most. I dreamed once about everyone taking communion and I was standing outside the church.

The truth is I don't take communion anymore. I haven't in a year.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like churches. Especially old churches. I think of them as places where I go to commune with the ancestors.

I last took communion over twenty years ago. I don't miss it. I always (even when I was a priest) thought it was kinda unhygenic.