Good Friday 2018! - Not as Bad as Jesus!

Good Friday 2018.

I don't go to Church anymore. But I do remember being a young lad in Catholic school. This would be the day that the Priest would go through the "stations of the cross." I can conjure up images. There were actually pictures of key scenes in the scenario hanging on the walls in the church. The Priest would make the rounds and pause before each picture.  The Romans whipping Jesus. The woman wiping his face. Nails driven into hands and feet. It was a gruesome, indelible spectacle. 

I was never really sure what it all had to do with me. I was told that I was guilty too. My sins, added to the misery of Jesus. That never quite made sense to me. I felt bad for Jesus. He seemed like a nice enough guy. Never really understood why he had to endure such  difficult pain and suffering.

I remember the smell of the incense. The ringing bells, the prayers, the hymns. The kneeling and standing in unison. Seems so far away. But of course these events are buried deep in my being, my consciousness. I can easily bring it all up again.

Maybe not the greatest story ever told. I mean it's a good yarn, right up there with the story of Liverpool's The Beatles, or Tupelo's King Elvis, or the stories of Mohammad, Krishna, Buddha, or Melville's Moby Dick or Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. All memorable and worthy sagas for sure. 

Jesus. I wish you well. I see you and your story mythically, poetically, now. We all have a cross to bear. For us, every slight, every snub, every failure, every fuckup, we can think to ourselves, "Well it isn't as bad as what happened to Jesus!" We must try our best to live lightly and rightly. And damn the torpedoes. Bless.