Good Friday

I have a few traditions on Good Friday that help bring me into contemplation of the day itself. I always need to listen to Andrew Lloyd Weber's Pie Jesu and Abraham, Martin and John by Dion for starters. (Sidenote: growing up in Los Angeles, I always remember that song 'Abraham...' being played on the radio on Good Friday. For me, this song represents our work in both the shadow and in the light of the cross) In the last several years in which I've lived toward the northwest corridor of Austin, I've gone to a noon or 3 p.m. service at a church off 620. Their stations of the cross are located in a wooded setting and to walk it with a couple of hundred people is in a word, cool. It's so quiet, except when the priest reads, yet you're in the midst of all these people who approach Christ's death on the cross differently. Some are families that visibly show their closeness, some are more charismatic as they genuflect in front of each station, while others are, like me, just simply reverent and reflective. At this outdoor walking of the stations of the cross, people also just come the way they are...simple, not sophisticated, loud or trendy, just grocery store ordinary. In an ordianry way, I have one last tradition, I always eat a fish sandwich somewhere :-). This year life is different and I will commemorate Good Friday differently too. In the midst of heavy reading assignments and gearing up for the end of the semester, I will have a more quiet day; campus service at 11, give to others from 3-6, and then my own special prayer time at 9. Oh and the fish sandwich, I ate that last night...today, it's simple soup. :-).
Below is a sharing of my traditions and one new. Watch the Abraham, Martin and John video, it's a great reminder and reflection on the lives of MLK, Lincoln and John and Bobby Kennedy, the virtuous ideals they stood for...the second video is Pie Jesu song by Hayley Westenra. And, lastly the new...a short speech given on Good Friday by author and activist Shane Claiborne ("The Irresistible Revolution"). It's his shares experiences gained from a trip to Iraq in March 2003 with a Christian Peacemaker Team / Voices in the Wilderness delegation.