A Good Friday Poem...for Parents

It's Good Friday today.  God's Friday.

And as so often happens on a Christian holiday/holy day, I search out poetry to help me sort my thoughts and feelings.  This year I stumbled upon this one here, posted by an author named Ellen Painter Dollar.  I don't know her or her work, but from a brief read of her biography, she's dealt with issues similar to those in my life: faith, disability and parenting.

In the past year the impact of this challenging combination on my life and the lives of my children has become ever more evident to me...and so this work by Wendell Berry speaks to my heart today.

I share it here for those Gentle Readers who might find solace and support in his words.

Easter cannot come without Good Friday.

The Way of Pain 

For parents, the only way
is hard. We who give life
give pain. There is no help.
Yet we who give pain
give love; by pain we learn
the extremity of love.

I read of Abraham’s sacrifice
the Voice required of him,
so that he led to the altar
and the knife his only son.
The beloved life was spared
that time, but not the pain.
It was the pain that was required.

I read of Christ crucified,
the only begotten Son
sacrificed to flesh and time
and all our woe. He died
and rose, but who does not tremble
for his pain, his loneliness,
and the darkness of the sixth hour?
Unless we grieve like Mary
at His grave, giving Him up
as lost, no Easter morning comes.

And then I slept, and dreamed
the life of my only son
was required of me, and I
must bring him to the edge
of pain, not knowing why.
I woke, and yet that pain
was true. It brought his life
to the full in me. I bore him
suffering, with love like the sun,
too bright, unsparing, whole.

                     - Wendell Berry

Good Friday - 2014

O Love 

that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul
in thee, that in thine
ocean depths its flow
 may richer, fuller be. O Light that followest all my way, I yield my flickering 
torch to thee; my heart restores its borrowed way,  that in thy sunshine-blaze, 
its day may brighter,  fairer be.  O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot 
close my heart to thee;  I trace the rainbow through the rain, and feel the 
promise is not vain that morn shall fearless  be.  O Cross that liftest up 
my head,  I dare not ask to fly from thee;  
I lay in dust that 

life's glory dead,

and from the ground

there blossoms red

Life that shall endless be.*

*O Love That Will Not Let Me Go - Rev. George Matheson, 1881; The Book of Common Praise (revised 1938), Being the Hymn Book of the Anglican Church of Canada, Oxford University Press.

Good Grief

O my chief good,

How shall I measure out Thy bloud?

How shall I count what Thee befell,

And each grief tell?

Shall I Thy woes

Number according to Thy foes?

Or, since one starre show'd Thy first breath,

Shall all Thy death?

Or shall each leaf

Which falls in Autumne score a grief?

Or cannot leaves, but fruit, be signe

Of the True Vine?

Then let each hour

Of my whole life once grief devoure,

That Thy distresse through all may runne,

And be my sunne.

Or rather let

My sev'rall sinnes their sorrows get,

That as each beast his cure doth know,

Each sinne may so.

Since bloud is fittest, Lord, to write

Thy sorrows in and bloudie fight,

My heart hat store, write there, where in

One box doth lie both ink and sinne:

That when Sinne spies so many foes,

Thy whips, Thy nails, Thy wounds, Thy woes,

All come to lodge there, Sinne may say,

'No room for me', and flie away.

Sinne being gone, O, fill the place,

And keep possession with Thy grace;

Lest sinne take courage and return,

And all the writings blot or burn.

-- George Herbert (1593-1633)

"Good Friday" from The Temple

Why 'GOOD' Friday?

In this "post-Christian" era, many self-professed Christians do not actively commemorate Good Friday, preferring instead to focus on the joy of Easter, and its attendant cultural delights.  Although my regular CBC Radio 2 station eschewed political correctness in favour of playing beautiful classical pieces appropriate to the day, the (no doubt well-intended) host made a mockery of the day near the end of the program when she narrated the story of Wagner's Parsifal, Act 3, supposedly inspired on Good Friday, and quipped that to make it a really good Friday, a bit of joyous music was in order.  Sigh.

In many countries -- even those professing the greatest numbers of practicing Roman Catholics -- Good Friday is not a holiday.  In Canada it is, but I venture that nowadays most people use it as just another reason to sleep in or to shop, to take in a movie, or to rush out to pick up that last minute chocolate bunny for Easter morning.  I would opine that most Canadians have no idea why this holiday is "celebrated", or what it means -- unless, as on CBC News, they hear the announcer explain that this is the day observed as that on which Jesus, the Christ, was crucified.

Come again?! People are "celebrating" an execution?  Calling it "good"?

No.

Rather, as Reverend Ken Collins explains, "Good" is a corruption of the language that has occurred over time.  In the German, the translation comes from karfreitag, a combination of kar (cares and woes) and mourning.

"Good" Friday might also once have been "God's" Friday.  A holy day.  (Just like "Good-bye" originates in the phrase, "God Be With Ye")

Finally, Rev. Collins states he rather likes the idea that the "Good" reflects the notion that out of the greatest tragedy (the execution and death of the Son of God) there came the greatest good (the salvation of the world and the overcoming of death in His Resurrection).

Tony Campolo is fond of saying, "Friday's here -- but Sunday's coming!"

Without Good Friday, though, there would be no Easter Sunday.

It all happens because of the Cross.  And that, my friends, is the Goodness of God poured out in Love for all the World.  Good Friday, indeed.

Were You There?

Unity Cross - James Avenue Church

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?

Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?

Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?

-- Negro Spiritual