Death in the family.

When I was a young lad about town some years ago, I and some friends went to the Old Town Bar on Good Friday to imbibe. We found it dark, with a sign on the door saying Closed Due to Death in Family 2000 Years Ago. 

A bar closing on a Friday! Now that's a sacrifice. 

And, after all, today is a day of sacrifice. Some are not that difficult. I feel better than I did yesterday, but my normal -- perhaps my normal abnormal -- appetite for food is still diminished. We'll abstain from meat at dinner, which is no big deal. Of course, there's already Easter chocolate in the house, but I can resist that too. The only danger there is that I'm such a knucklehead for candy I might grab for one without thinking. 

Dove chocolate. It could only be more suitable if the brand were Lamb chocolate.

My wife took the day off to focus on its significance, but I'll be working. If freelancers had a flag its motto would be Nullum opus, nullum stipendium, or No work, no pay.

But I won't forget today is the day to remember this. 

Sick day.

Not much today; trying to take it easy. It won't help, though. I believe I have a case of gastritis. My stomach has been off since Friday, but without the explosive or cemented effects one might have from gastroenteritis. 

How did I get this? Oh, who knows. I have two dogs with powerhouse immune systems who like to snack on wildlife poop; maybe that had something to do with it. You forget to wash your hands once....

At least it's not Chinese Death Virus. 

Although I have managed with some difficulty to procure lamb shanks for the Easter feast, and I would hate to be unable to enjoy it. On the other hand, feeling poorly makes the Good Friday fast easier. 

Well, I'll check in tomorrow. I still have to work, but I'm letting other things go light. The dogs can walk each other for all I care. Blarg.

Fast acting.

I don't have much to say today, Good Friday, that I didn't say yesterday in cartoon form, except to add: I'm HUNGRY!

Well, all right, I'm not hungry, yet. But as an American who has never had to go a day without food because there was no food available, I'm not used to the fast that falls on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. I'm totally spoiled that way, and I wish everyone on earth that privilege. 

The rules are, as outlined by the bishops: 

For members of the Latin Catholic Church, the norms on fasting are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onwards.

If possible, the fast on Good Friday is continued until the Easter Vigil (on Holy Saturday night) as the "paschal fast" to honor the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus and to prepare ourselves to share more fully and to celebrate more readily his Resurrection.

I didn't know this latter part about the fast continuing to the Saturday Vigil, which usually begins around eight in the evening here. Dude, that's like, four meals I'm missing, with just one meal in between! And no snacks! And no meat! Do I look like John the Baptist to you? Camel hair is not my color!

Of course, fasting has been a crucial part of Christian teaching, and that of every major religion. Self-denial is paramount in learning obedience to God, and to putting our egos in their proper and healthy place. What the Catholic church urges us to do is nothing compared to the Ramadan fast observed by Muslims, where not even a drop of water may be consumed from sunup to sundown. Because it is keyed to lunar cycles, it is celebrated (if that's the word I want) at different times of the year each year. When it falls in June or July, it must be murder. And it goes on for a month. 

Some people these days fast for bodily rather than spiritual health. Harvard Health has some good things to say about this practice, and it has shown great promise, especially in fat rats. And I say: It's about time those rats got off their tails. 

Along those lines, today, April 2, happens to be the feast day (so to speak) of St. Francis of Paola, founder of a strict order in the 15th century. 

Humility was to be the hallmark of the brothers as it had been in Francis' personal life. Abstinence from meat and other animal products became a "fourth vow" of his religious order, along with the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Francis instituted the continual, year-round observance of this diet in an effort to revive the tradition of fasting during Lent, which many Roman Catholics had ceased to practice by the 15th century. The rule of life adopted by Francis and his religious was one of extraordinary severity. He felt that heroic mortification was necessary as a means for spiritual growth.

He lived to the age of 91. Some might suggest that he felt like he lived to the age of 391 with a diet like that, but that wasn't what he was about. 

Meanwhile, back home, our parish has had some outstanding pastors, but they seem to have had different takes on food. The one we had when we moved here looked like he'd never missed a meal in his life; one after him looked like he'd never eaten a real meal. The current one is somewhere in the middle. 

Well, I am sure I can endure this hunger situation, and could even if it went until Saturday night. There is a world of difference between hunger when you don't know where your next meal is coming from and hunger when you see Snickers eggs and braised lamb shanks at the end of the tunnel. 

I feel like a guy playing at being needy, but maybe that's better than never giving the state and consequences of true need any thought at all. 

Suffering for art.

When I was a young man, with that fresh-out-of-college smell still on me, I was on a self-improvement kick. Having neglected everything in pursuit of my degree, and in pursuit of having fun as I pursued my degree, I tried to make my mind more well-rounded and my body less so. I took up running. I started reading great books without a professor forcing me to. I studied philosophy and economics and history. And one year, when the office tossed us out at noon on Good Friday, I went to a Good Friday service at a church where the choir was performing the Johann Sebastian Bach St. Matthew Passion.

I wanted to cultivate some knowledge of religion, but also knowledge of classical music, which like most American kids my age had been largely restricted to aborted piano lessons, school choral groups, and of course Looney Tunes. But because of this minimal exposure, and the fact that I thought I liked things I'd heard from Vivaldi and the rest of that crowd, I wanted to immerse myself in Bach's musical masterpiece.

I learned a few things that day.

1) Good Friday services with the complete Bach Passion run for three hours.

2) Three hours can feel like 300 hours.

3) It is apparently important to suffer right along with Jesus.

4) Despite having studies the origins of words, I don't know a single word of Latin when sung.

5) I am an unreconstructed ignoramus slug of a barbaric bozo upon whom the world's greatest music is completely wasted.

No thanks, Mr. Bach.

Every time I look back on that day, I think of Sinclair Lewis's novel Arrowsmith. The hero, Martin Arrowsmith, a young man with a powerful bent for science, is taken by fellow student Angus Duer to a classical music concert.

At supper Duer said abruptly, "Come into town with me and hear a concert."
      For all his fancied superiority to the class, Martin was illimitably ignorant of literature, of painting, of music. That the bloodless and acquisitive Angus Duer should waste time listening to fiddlers was astounding to him.  He discovered that Duer had enthusiasm for two composers, called Bach and Beethoven, presumably Germans, and that he himself did not yet comprehend all the ways of the world. On the interurban, Duer's gravity loosened, and he cried, "Boy, if I hadn't been born to carve up innards, I'd have been a great musician! Tonight I'm going to lead you right into Heaven!"
      Martin found himself in a confusion of little chairs and vast gilded arches, of polite but disapproving ladies with programs in their laps, unromantic musicians making unpleasant noises below and, at last, incomprehensible beauty, which made for him pictures of hills and deep forests, then suddenly became achingly long-winded. He exulted, "I'm going to have 'em all--the fame of Max Gottlieb--I mean his ability--and the lovely music and lovely women--  Golly!  I'm going to do big things. And see the world. . . .  Will this piece never quit?"

Unlike Martin, I was not particularly good at science, and I think I missed any of the incomprehensible beauty bits. It made me wonder what I had been doing my whole life to that point.

And I have avoided Bach ever since.

That's pretty much all I remember about it except for one thing, which is also 100% true. It had been a very wet, miserable April day, and the rain was lashing the church pretty well throughout the interminable service. Then, at three o'clock, just as everything was finished, through a narrow window behind the altar, I could see a sharp, piercing beam of the sun breaking through.

The perfect sign.

I've long thought that the perfect symbol for something momentous has got to be the cross, which Christians think is the perfect sign of the most momentous sacrifice in history. It works out so well that it's easy to see God's hand in it.

1) It's simple.

A small child can make a cross. It's even easier to draw than the ichthus, the fish symbol composed of two arcs, because you have to make curved lines -- straight lines are easier to draw. The cross is simpler than any sign of a supernatural faith -- the Star of David, the pentacle, the star and crescent, and surely every motif associated with Hinduism. It's simpler than secular signs like the hammer and sickle. It's even simpler than the Bass Ale triangle. Simplicity helps a message spread.

2) Its essence and scope are in the design.

It's not hard to understand the principles of the public torture and murder method known as crucifixion; once we do, we see it in those simple lines. It is also the post and beam that holds up the roof to shield us, the sail to move us. The cross also means a crossroads, a change of direction, and believers find that the cross is the ultimate change of direction for humanity. The cross is sturdy, as faith must be. In other words, the sign expresses so many things within its two lines, many that require no prior knowledge of crucifixion. G. K. Chesterton has a lot to say on this topic in his novel The Ball and the Cross. 

3) It speaks history.

The public nature of the cross is vital to the story; Jesus's death was a public event, witnessed by many. He did not go sneaking off somewhere before he died. You can't go sneaking off the cross; even if you could get off, the Romans would stick you right back up there. It is crucial (if you will) that we know that Jesus died, because when He was seen later, that was pretty significant. It goes to the faith as being tied to a definite event that happened in a definite time and place, unlike the legends of gods in other cultures. For all its cruelty, though, the cross leaves a body that is recognizable and not in pieces; not that God cannot reassemble pieces, but it would have just made Jesus seem more like a ghost on His return than the One who had defeated death. (As it was, He had to prove to the Apostles twice that He was not a ghost.)

The cross teaches us about cultures that used (and sometimes still use) the evil of crucifixion, meant to be a shameful as well as cruel means of death; in it we also remember the triumph of the faith. The cross was not used commonly as a Christian symbol until after Constantine. After that, it was seen on all the structures of Christianity through the march of the centuries. 

4) It works better than any other sacrificial sign you can think of.

Think of saints who were tortured to death or otherwise murdered in the course of God's work. Do we symbolize St. Paul or St. John the Baptist with the headman's ax? The answer is not usually. These would not put one immediately in mind of the victim. You might think St. Paul was a Viking if we used the ax. St. Lawrence, famously grilled to death, is often symbolized by the gridiron, but that's not a device normally associated with torture as the cross is. The Catherine Wheel is the closest sacrificial sign I can think of, and St. Catherine of Alexandria did not die on it; the spiked wheel shattered at her touch.

5) It works better than any other simple sign you can think of.

Think of other very simple things to draw -- line, square, circle, scribble. Do any of these suggest a means of fatal torture, let alone a high public one, let alone one that tells the story of God's sacrifice to reconcile the world to Himself?

6) It is easily embellished for related uses.

Catholics display the cross as a crucifix, with the body of the Victim on it. Most Protestants just leave the cross unadorned. Some saints have different crosses; the upside-down cross is a sign of evil in Hollywood and among other ignoramuses, but in truth it is St. Peter's cross, as tradition says Peter did not think himself worthy to be crucified in the same way as Jesus. St. George, St. Andrew, St. Brigid and others have variations on the cross. St. Florian's is well known as a symbol of fire departments. At its heart, it remains the cross.

7) It spells agony, and holiness.

And sometimes it appears as such in the most appropriate times.

Holyyyyyy.....

I gotta tell you, I got very little today.

Good Friday is a depressing day by nature, but yesterday was lousy. Oh, the weather was terrific. I had two jobs on my desk and knocked one of them off in the morning. Yay money.

Then the ennui entered.

Spent an hour on project #2; could not motivate myself past that. Wasn't expecting any work-related calls or messages; seemed like all my clients had knocked off early. Maybe I will too.

Started to mope. Could've started on the yard work. Meh, neighbors outside -- jerks. Looking at them makes me sore. Writing project? No ideas. Laundry? Too noisy; wakes the sleeping dogs, and you know what they say about sleeping dogs. No, obviously the shroud of misery had descended on me.

I know doing something productive usually helps at times like these. I did bring that no-good Cuisinart pot to the UPS drop box to return it (because it's so much cheaper for everyone involved than sending me the tiny plastic piece that was missing). And when the dogs woke up I did allow myself to be hauled outside by my wife so we could frolic in the backyard. But all of it felt like I was like I was dragging around one of those big cartoon ball-and-chain sets.

stylin'

There were other things I could have done that would have helped. I could have gone to church to sit for a little while. I could have cleaned the bathroom. I could have tried to do something good for someone -- there are usually opportunities like that around if you look for them. I could have taken a nap. Well, I actually did try to take a nap after I dozed off in the chair, but the moment I hit the sofa I woke up.

When you can't even nap right, you know you're having a session of depression.

And now we're in Holy Saturday, which is also unhappy. The Apostles are in hiding. Mary's lost her son. Everything has gone as wrong as it can, and there's barely any hope of escape the worst that is yet to come.

Am I identifying too much? Maybe. Not that I don't have some difficult things going on; who doesn't? But I know that tomorrow is Easter, when everything turns around; the Apostles et al. did not know that.

This morning I'm doing better than yesterday, but I still feel like a trapeze artist who's flung himself free of his swing, trusting that there will be someone on the other side to catch me.

Unsettled, unsure, and low.

I guess we'll see how it goes tomorrow....

Easter tree.

God said Eat not of the fruit of the tree

As told in Genesis 3 and 3

Eat not of the tree or dead you shall be

In Adam’s fall, all sinned did we

By the altar put no grove of any tree

We were told in Deuteronomy

And if a man sins and dying must be

Hang ye that man upon a tree

They sing in Chronicles 16:33

The judgment of God makes the song of the tree

In Proverbs to tree as like Wisdom be

Called tree of life to they that hold she

Matthew and Luke tell of fruit from the tree

Good fruit and bad tree indubitably

By their fruit we can know which kind they may be

The kind of the fruit tells us the kind of the tree

Blessed is the fruit of Mary’s womb

Blessed is the work of our salvation

The route from tree to tree to tomb

Requires participation

Our surrender is our only key

To save us from eternal loss

For only God can make the tree

But only Man can build the cross.

Good Friday.

I've always found it interesting that the New York Stock Exchange closes on Good Friday. I didn't know that NASDAQ does too. And the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Being kind of the opposite of a money person -- I sometimes appear to act as a sort of money repellent -- I'd have no reason to know, really. But I'm glad they do.

It's not a federal holiday, and most of us have to work. So why are the markets closed?

Some say it's considered bad luck, although historically the few days the NYSE was open on the day were not bad investment days. It would seem to be courting bad luck when you consider Jesus's betrayer was paid in blood money, that Jesus had some general but strong rules about money (especially in the temple).

Apparently there's no simple answer to why the NYSE decided to close on the day, but when America was a more Christian and observant nation, the traders would have probably felt too solemn for the high-energy antics involved in wheeling and/or dealing. Or at least they had the sense to realize they ought to look solemn.

Reputations used to require more solidity. No one wanted to trust his money to a flibbertigibbet or a jerk who didn't observe the cultural norms. Thus, banks and insurance companies and investment firms had to have buildings that looked like churches. And money men had to at least look as if they took the death of their Savior seriously.

Now the buildings look like Lucite boxes and the jerk who breaks the cultural norms is A-OK, as long as he has the hot hand.

So it's kind of a nice, even quaint throwback that the markets in the U.S. close on Good Friday. I wish we were more faithful in our reasons for it, but you never know. As long as the holiday remains a marker for the market, it's a reminder that there are more important things than money.

And thank God for that, because I keep repelling it.