Good Friday

And so it is Good Friday. It's about two in the afternoon in these parts. By Mark's account, Jesus has been on the cross for about five hours, since 9 AM. The entire earth was plunged into darkness about two hours ago. In about an hour, Jesus' life will end with a loud cry. Crucified on the third hour; the world goes dark on the sixth hour; Jesus dies on the ninth hour.

To a Jewish audience of that era, those times are significant and symbolic. If the account had said that these events occurred on, say, the first hour, the fourth hour and the seventh hour, the significance would not have been as great. But these events are noted as having occurred on the third, the sixth and the ninth hours, and this would have been flashing lights and clanging bells to a Jewish readership. Those were the Jewish hours of prayer. It's not coincidence that the writers of the Gospels - Jews all - would have emphasized those hours.

It's two hours since the earth has gone black. I can't imagine how terrifying that would have been. Sure, everyone knew about solar eclipses, but no solar eclipse lasts for two hours. We can imagine the fear in Jerusalem, while on the near outskirts of town, on a hill called Golgotha, three convicted criminals hang on crosses. The end is near.

Crucifixion is one of the cruelest, most painful forms of execution that the human mind has conceived. The nails through the palms thing wouldn't work; the nails would work their way through a part of your hand where there aro no bones to support the weight of a human body. The nails may be hammered through the palms, but rope would also be used to tie the wrists. There would be a foot support there, but this was not for comfort. It was to prolong the agony. Crucifixion puts the body into such a contorted position that the only way the victim could exhale would be to push down on his or her feet. Thus, the foot support just to be sure you could continue to exhale.

Crucifixion was not a Jewish form of execution. It was Roman, although it seems the Persians thought of it first. The Romans rarely, if ever, inflicted crucifixion on Roman citizens. Paul, being a Roman citizen, was executed by beheading. Peter, not a citizen, was crucified. Crucified upside down, as legend has it.

Three crosses on a hill. The guy in the middle - Yeshua, or Jesus to English speakers - had gone through considerable suffering before he was crucified. He was scourged, and not everyone survived scourging. He was mocked, and a crown of thorns was placed on his head. Ever get your thumb pricked by one thorn? Then he was made to carry his own cross,  Not light, and at one point the Romans compel a passer-by, Simon, a Cyrenean, to carry Jesus' cross.

Then, finally, Golgotha. The crucifixion. And the miracle.

Jesus dies six hours after crucifixion. Healthy adult males usually didn't expire that soon. Death for the crucified could linger for days. It surely seemed that Jesus himself decided when His work was finished. That just didn't happen at crucifixions.

By Mark's account Jesus died with a loud cry. That didn't happen at crucifixions, either. Suffocation was the usual eventual cause of death, but it was in a race with thirst. Expiration would have occurred silently, or with a very slight gasp. No loud cries.

The Roman guard would have seen hundreds of crucifixions. The Romans were not chintzy with their wood when they thought crucifixions were called for. And the Roman guard would have known that this deciding on your own when you're done, this dying with a loud cry, this darkness covering the earth as though God Himself didn't want to see this - there was a lot about THIS crucifixion that just wasn't normal.

Then the veil of the temple was torn in two, top to bottom. THAT just didn't happen either. Yes, this was very unusual.

Hemingway wrote a story centered around a character who was a member of the Roman cohort. It was set years later, and a theme was that this hardened guard who had participated in a lot of executionas never got over this one. Never got past asking, "Who was this? What did we do?"

Have we answered, even yet?

So, Jesus dies on the ninth hour of Good Friday. Despite all the odd stuff, he is dead. Obviously, dead. Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate knew that death by crucifixion wasn't usually that quick, so he wondered, but he ascertained that Jesus was dead. And he granted Joseph the body. The body was buried, and those who buried it noted the place where they buried it.

Jesus was dead. Gone. This person who comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable was no longer a thorn in the side of Roman or Pharisee or Sadduccee or Scribe.

Dead. Gone. Finis.

Arrest and Trial

It's the start of Good Friday. And I'm up way past my bedtime. Thinking - contemplating. . .

I think that, if you would understand Christianity, you must come to terms with Jesus' betrayal, arrest, trial and crucifixion. There is no doubt that something earth-shaking happened on that cross. We may have no way, in any human terms, to know precisely what it was that happened, but something did happen, and that something was of such a nature that no human words are adequate to describe it. That inadequacy of human language is the reason that any talk of God is and must be metaphoric.

But, something happened, and nothing - nothing - ever has been or ever will be the same since.

It's now about 1:00 A.M., and since the end of the Holy Thursday Mass I have been soaking myself, in thought and in reading, in St. Mark's account of Christ's Passion. I mean to not hurry through it. To come to terms with your Christian faith is to come to terms with what happened on that cross as best we can, so I'm slowly working my way through Mark chapters 14 and 15. A theme that is present in these chapters is betrayal. At one point Peter tells Jesus that he, Peter, will never betray Jesus, even if his loyalty costs him life. Jesus - can you almost hear Jesus' snorting under his breath? - replies that this very night, before the cock crows twice, Peter will deny three times that he even knows Jesus. By the end of chapter 14, that which had been unthinkable to Peter just hours before has come to pass. He denies three times that he knows Jesus. Immediately after the third denial, Peter hears the second cock-crow. Peter goes and weeps bitterly.

One type of prayer I engage in is that I read a passage slowly, meditatively, and try to place myself in the scene. Who am I? What am I doing? And, in this scene, that leads to a question. Even now, centuries and millenia later, could I really say that I'd do anything different from what Peter did? Would I also have denied Jesus because it was - well - comfy and convenient?

Probably. In fact, I do so now. So this is my confession and my apology, however weak, and my stated intention of repentance, however inadequate.

Lord, you said that those to be blessed of the Father would be those who gave you food when you were hungry and drink when you were thirsty. When I have seen those who were in need, and not recognized you in them, I am so so sorry. Please help me to do better.

Jesus, you said that those to be blessed of the Father would offer welcome to the stranger. I try, Father, in my efforts to obtain justice for immigrants, but my efforts are weak, and too often I think that this is something I should get a pat on the back for. Even when I try to help, my motives are largely selfish. Lord, please forgive me, and if we - WE - have any successes, let all the glory be to your holy name. Let me see You in the face of the undocumented worker.

And for the sick - the naked - the imprisoned - where I have failed to identify the need or to contribute to the solution - where I have failed to recognize You in the faces of need - God, forgive me. Kyrie eleison - Lord have mercy.

So, yes, I betray Jesus. I do so daily. And as I think, and as I reflect, it's only His love and grace that makes me want to do better.

How 'bout you?

Thanks for hanging out for a few. Love your thoughts.

Today on the banks of the Mississippi

The Mississippi. I'm told that some police officers use the spelling of Mississippi as an instant sobriety test. I'm also told that officers in Dubuque use their city's name for the same thing. "D-u-b-b-u-u-uh, where. . .?"

There are three memorial plaques attached to three rocks on the south side of LeClaire Park. The first plaque is in commemoration of the robbery otherwise known as the Blackhawk Purchase Treaty. The second is for Antoine LeClaire. LeClaire functioned as an interpreter for the aforementioned muggi. . .er, treaty. Just happened to be at the right place at the right time, I guess. As a result of the treaty LeClaire wound up with a fair-sized chunk of land on the Iowa side of the river. Yep. He came to do good, and he did right well.

Interesting thing about the naming of the Quad Cities. LeClaire lived in Davenport, not in the town now known as LeClaire. So what's now Davenport should really have been LeClaire. But, fear not. Colonel Davenport did live in the area, on Arsenal Island. So, Davenport should have been LeClaire, and Rock Island should have been Davenport. Moline would be an appropriate name - it come from the French  moulin, meaning "mills."

And what should the present-day LeClaire have really been? Nothing much. OK, maybe Cody. Buffalo Bill Cody was the most famous person to come from that town. THAT'S something to brag about.

Ethics. Seeing those two commemorations of the plundering of the Native Americans just a short distance from the Rhythm City Casino, where Quad City retirees go to leave their money, made me think about ethics. Kant wrote about ethics, and he was fond of the term "imperatives", or whatever the German word for imperatives was. (With Kant you can never ever forget that he wrote in German, and lots of the shades and nuances integral to his explanation of his thought just don't translate. Not that Kant was all that readable in German, for that matter.) He wrote about hypothetical imperatives - situational - "If you're hungry you should eat" - and categorical imperatives, the imperatives that you would wish to be universal law.

I'm not necessarily on board with him, for two reasons. One is that I'm coming to the conclusion that there are very few true categorical imperatives out there. "Thou shalt not kill" - but if I come home and find a guy with a knife to my 10-year-old granddaughter's throat, and if I have a .357 delete button nearby - DEEElete. No prob. Thus the categorical imperative shows itself to have elements of the hypothetical imperative after all. What happens when two categorical imperatives clash? Now isn't THAT the ethicists' question?

Besides, I'm not fond of the term "imperatives" (conceding that, in the German the term may have a different shade of meaning than what I'm addressing. Wir nicht sprechen Deutsch.) Are ethics all about imperatives? I think ethics are what guide you when you are not governed by imperatives. Ethics involve actions taken when there is free choice of actions to take.

Dang the things that pop into my head on a walk. On a sunny windy day. By that great sobriety test, the Mississippi.

A Stroll on the River

On the south side of LeClaire Park there are three rocks with plaques that memorialize events or people. As I walked that side of the park today, I stopped to read one of the plaques: "In Commemoration: The Blackhawk Purchase Treaty."

The treaty was signed in 1832. A little background: the Europeans had just won the Blackhawk War against the Sauk, the Fox (aka the Mesquawkie) and the Ho-Chunks (i.e., Winnebagos). Chief Blackhawk himself was in captivity.

If armed robbery is a purchase treaty, then this was a purchase treaty. "Here's my gun. I want your wallet. That's our treaty."

One of the few easily-established facts of history: how it's written, and how it's read, depends on who is doing the writing. And the writing is always done by the victors. The monuments are erected by the victors. Do you think those figures on Mount Rushmore were selected by Native Americans?

So whites wrote the history. And built the memorial. And it was thus the "Blackhawk Purchase Treaty". Not armed robbery.

But it was armed robbery.

Well, DO something about it

If you've read my Facebook posts or my blog you are surely aware that I lean left on most issues. It's time, I think, to point out that I do more than just complain about issues. I see folks on TV, on Facebook, in newspapers to whom social justice is only an intellectual game. I have little respect for such gamesmanship, whether it comes from the left or the right. The question in my mind, when I hear this, is "And what are you doing about it?"

Other note: a few weeks ago I got tired of hearing Newt Gingrich talk about President Obama being a "Saul Alinsky liberal". If Newt hates Alinsky so much, then this Saul Alinsky must be someone worth learning about. He is, indeed. Lessons from Alinsky: 1) the key to getting anything done is organization; 2) your organization's target must be of a manageable size - big enough to make a difference, but small enough so that victory is achievable. Boil a pot of water. Don't try to boil the ocean.

My life outside of work and home:

AT SAINT MARY'S, DAVENPORT: I'm a lector in April, July and October. I'm a Eucharistic Minister in January and May. Two years ago I volunteered to serve on the Parish Council, and I was both humbled and honored to be selected as the Parish Council President. The Parish Council members each serve on one of the committees of St. Mary's. I selected the Social Action committee. That led to my involvement with. . .

QUAD CITY INTERFAITH: We're an organization of several churches in the Quad Cities. We have representatives on our Board from Catholic parishes, from UCC congregations, from Christian Church and Presbyterian congregations. We look to organize, and to assist others in organizing, in order to make the Quad Cities a more just place. We look, not to eradicate poverty and injustice, but to remove the underlying causes of poverty and injustice. We work through committees - task forces. We have an Immigration task force (mine), an Education, a Transportation, and a Health Care task force. Among our triumphs: last August we had a Transportation Summit, at which a Community Benefits Agreement was discussed. The rail line is coming to the Quad Cities (well, the Illinois Quad Cities.) There will a a lot of good jobs that come with the building and running of the railroad, and we'd like to have these jobs go to people in the QCA who need jobs. (Imagine that!) Another: we arranged, in cooperation with St. Ambrose University, a showing of the film abUSed. It's about the Postville raid. You should really research.

QCI does organizing, but important work can be done, and should be done, at the congregational level. We aim to have Core Groups at congregations. We had a training session last spring at St. Mary's to which a number of congregations were invited. As a result of that training, St. Mary's now has my third area of involvement, our

CORE GROUP FOR JUSTICE. Last year our Core Group maintained a focus on immigration and racial profiling. DWB - either Driving While Black, or Driving While Brown - will get you pulled over.

St. Mary's is actually a Spanish-speaking parish that happens to have a couple of English Masses. Probably 2/3 of our parish is Latino. Ours is, I think, the only Spanish Mass on the Iowa side. We arranged some meetings between our Hispanic parishioners and folks from the community that would be of interest to them: a public relations officer from the Davenport PD, someone from the Diocese who assists with immigration issues. This year, our Core Group has met twice. We have studied the issue of human trafficking and what we, in our little corner of the world, can do about it. It is not a very big leap from treatment of immigrants to trying to help victims of trafficking. Lots of victims - but by no means all - are from outside the U.S.

If you're from a parish or congregation that has no connection with QCI, or that has no Core Group, come join us. We'd love to have you! We don't require any particular expertise. The only thing you need is a mind and heart for justice. And a mind and heart for God.

Books part - whatever

I couldn't do my walk by the river today. It was a damp day, a little chill in the air - not great.

Last Saturday I did get to the Bettendorf library. I only live about two blocks from it and, if you ever bump into me away from work or away from home, it will probably be at a library. At the library, on the "New" shelves, two books were close to each other. One was entitled "John Wayne Gacy", the other, "Heinrich Himmler."

A genocidal mass murderer and a serial killer, rapist and torturer of adolescent boys. Now, there's a choice for you! Yes, there were other selections in the "New Books" section.

Never mind. I checked out the book on the genocidal mass murderer, Himmler. He was the head of Hitler's Gestapo, the SS, and thus maybe the most feared man in Germany.

I read a lot of biography, but why in the world would I choose a life of such a despicable character?

Because, if we are to say, "Never again!" as loudly and as emphatically as we need to, this is precisely the sort of individual we need most to understand. As much as I would love to think that our world has only saints - as much as I want to think that everyone is (here comes my heroes list) a King, a Berrigan, a Merton, a Bernardin, a Roncalli, it just ain't so.

So, Heinrich, here I come.

The River

I'm baaaack! for the first time since November 20. Anybody miss me?

A nephew of mine, who is rapidly becoming a hero to me, had stopped blogging for a time. He started again, with the discipline required to write something every day. He's an assistant professor of English at a university in Virginia. I'm not; I'm just someone who reads a lot. And minored in English as an undergrad. And wrote for the college undergraduate newspaper. And entered, and did OK in, some fiction writing competition. Something William and I both understand: if you would write, the only way to do it is to write. Just write. Daily. No need to worry about profundity or length or originality. Write enough, and those things will emerge. But to start: write. Just write.

So I repent. My wife will hate the ashes I spread on my sackcloth.

Today I invite you along on my walk by the Mississippi River. Immanuel Kant, the great philosopher, took a walk every day, starting every day promptly at 3:00. It was said that the people of Koenigsberg could set their clocks by this, he was so regular. I'm no Kant as a philosopher - if you had to categorize me as a philosopher, it would be something of a cross between Augustine and Kierkegaard - but you can set your clocks by my daily walk.Promptly at 2:30 PM I leave my place of work, at the corner of 2nd and Brady, in downtown Davenport. I return at 3:00. In between, I walk the Davenport riverfront, in LeClaire Park, roughly from the Rhythm City Casion, or whatever it is they're calling that eyesore these days, to the LeClaire Park bandshell and back.

Sometimes I can't. The River does flood now and then, and when it does, LeClaire Park is soggy, and parts disappear altogether. One day, as I was walking the riverfront after such a flood has receded, I saw a fish, good-sized and quite dead, that had been deserted by the withdrawing water. He - or she, I didn't check - must have had a last thought of "What the. . .?" Anyway, one day the fish is on the concrete drive by the casino. The next day the fish was still there. So were a bunch of birds that didn't look in the least bit hungry. The fish had a hole in its side. Thus the unhungry unangry birds. The following day the hole was bigger, and bigger the next day. . .This fish was within a few feet of the casino, but for a few days it seemed not to occur to anyone on the boat that this might be unsightly and bad for customer attraction. The fifth day the fish was gone.

There are memorials around the park. More on the next part of the tour.