Good Friday

Today my family will go to the steps in Mount Adam around 12 and pray there with other Christians, all moving from step to step at different speeds and different modes, until after 3 p.m. The forecast is sunny but in my many years, I can tell you that there has not been one year that it has not rained or gotten overcast. Afterwards, we'll go to this Scottish restaurant downtown we go to every year to have our one meal of the day: fish and chips! I love today because, for my family, no one works or goes to school; all day, we as a family pray and fast and do things together. This is the day the Nicene Creed reminds us of: "He suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died, and was buried."

East Coker [excerpt] by T.S. Eliot

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.