A Good Friday
J has had to rush into the office and do a couple of hours work, but then we're off to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. I have only been once, years ago, and I am very excited about the idea of spending the whole day wandering in the sunshine looking at beauty. Flowers feed the soul.
Good Friday always seems to be a gorgeous sunny spring day. When I was a child, Good Friday was the day my brother and sister and I would make the Easter Garden in the church porch. We would take rocks and cover them with moss, and place pots of spring bulbs and branches to make Gethsemane and Calvary, with three crosses made of twigs lashed together on a hill, one with 'INRI' on in carefully-inked lettering on a little notice. Then we would make a rock tomb, and cover the entrance with a large stone. Tea would be hot cross buns. I still feel odd if I eat them any day apart from Good Friday, though they started selling them in February in the shops. No meat all day, only fish.
On the Saturday night, there would be a service with an Easter bonfire, and we would leave the church and stand outside as darkness fell, watching the flames roar upwards, before carrying a lighted candle back into the church. It felt timeless, almost pagan.
On Easter day, the church would be filled with flowers, and we would roll the stone away from the tomb, leaving a little pile of cotton graveclothes neatly folded inside the tomb and a notice. ''Why seek you the living, among the dead?''. Back home for roast lamb, and an Easter egg hunt in the garden.
Tomorrow I will tell you about Easter Saturday night in Jerusalem, and how I danced with an African pope, and the bonfire on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre.
Have a Good Friday, and enjoy the sunshine. I am not going to church, but I will send out a prayer for peace and light a candle tonight for those crucified by war, suffering, disease, torture and poverty. And go here.
Good Friday always seems to be a gorgeous sunny spring day. When I was a child, Good Friday was the day my brother and sister and I would make the Easter Garden in the church porch. We would take rocks and cover them with moss, and place pots of spring bulbs and branches to make Gethsemane and Calvary, with three crosses made of twigs lashed together on a hill, one with 'INRI' on in carefully-inked lettering on a little notice. Then we would make a rock tomb, and cover the entrance with a large stone. Tea would be hot cross buns. I still feel odd if I eat them any day apart from Good Friday, though they started selling them in February in the shops. No meat all day, only fish.
On the Saturday night, there would be a service with an Easter bonfire, and we would leave the church and stand outside as darkness fell, watching the flames roar upwards, before carrying a lighted candle back into the church. It felt timeless, almost pagan.
On Easter day, the church would be filled with flowers, and we would roll the stone away from the tomb, leaving a little pile of cotton graveclothes neatly folded inside the tomb and a notice. ''Why seek you the living, among the dead?''. Back home for roast lamb, and an Easter egg hunt in the garden.
Tomorrow I will tell you about Easter Saturday night in Jerusalem, and how I danced with an African pope, and the bonfire on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre.
Have a Good Friday, and enjoy the sunshine. I am not going to church, but I will send out a prayer for peace and light a candle tonight for those crucified by war, suffering, disease, torture and poverty. And go here.
posted by Rachel at 10:15 am
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. - Good Friday
Ah so that's where the sunshine has gone! Yesterday was glorious but I was in work all day. Today it's gone a bit dull and I'm off.
Have a great Easter weekend.
Ah, you are so much more understanding than me about your other half having to work on Good Friday. I tried to be, I really did. In my mind I was going to be the perfect, understanding wife. Instead, it deteroriated into a row about "stupid false deadlines" and "blokes with too much testerone proving they're tough enough to work over holidays"... I will do better next time, I will...
that'll be testosterone, not testerone. Sorry. Is there a spell check on these things that I haven't found yet.