Friday, April 2, 2010

Lenten meditation #4

"Good Friday is the day when you can do nothing. Bewailing and lamenting our manifold sins does not in itself make up for them. Scouring your soul in a frenzy of spring cleaning only sterilizes it; it does not give life. On Good Friday, finally, we are all, mourners and mockers alike, reduced to the same impotence. Someone else is doing the terrible work that gives life to the world.” –Virginia Stem Owens

My friends disappoint me. They sleep while I sweat blood. Friends will always disappoint, as I regularly disappoint them. That is the sad truth about living in a broken world. We all fall pathetically short of being for each other in the way that we should. We lack the words, the acts, the time it takes to demonstrate to our friends that they are not alone in the world. We are cowards.

I will never get used to the fact that at the very center of the Christian faith we hear the cry of the godforsaken Christ. His friends have scattered. He speaks parting words of derelection. God is silent. How can he endure it? At the end, he must. I join in his death cry and await with him his resurrection.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Peter,
Eight years ago I suffered a depression. It lasted about a year. I spent my 20s tacking left and right and not really advancing, but about the time I turned 30, I turned into the wind, confronting the tensions and ambiguities of life. And it was too much. I tack left and right again.
I think most of us do.

Your blog reminds me of turning directly into the wind. Each thought is deliberate and sober. And appreciated.

Unknown said...

Okay Peter, this post hit me square between the eyes. I wasn't there for you when you asked about getting together next time you are in Portland. I let you down because I was too busy, too distracted, too caught up in the day to day. Yes, I want you to see Treephoria, and hopefully the tulips will still be putting on a show in the garden. And I would like to see the wildflowers in the gorge, too. Time to make time for you and other important people in my life.

Unknown said...

This his me hard. Forget is the wrong word, evade is stronger. I evade my responsibilities as a friend, sister, aunt, Christian and follow the easy path, not the best path. I let others down when they need me more than anything.