April 3: Christ's Body, God's Love Numbers Forty-Four and Forty-Five, Fary Fairy Tale

[Ives] returned to work.  Above his drawing board on the wall, he kept a small crucifix, and could not avoid the image of Christ's body on the Cross:  the musculature of the legs, the tensed arms, the tormented chest, the downturned head, sculpted in metal.  For a moment, Ives imagined the actual body of Christ and wondered what He would have made of the woman in the courtyard window.  Would He have seen the woman in the courtyard window?  Would He have been thrilled by the sight of that woman's alluring body?  Would He have felt a momentary queasiness in the belly, or lingered for a moment, as his son and his friends--as Ives himself--had done?

Ives has just discovered his son, Robert, and his son's friends spying on a neighbor woman.  The woman is getting undressed in her bedroom, and she leaves her curtains open.  Like any teenage boy would, Robert turns off the lights in his room and watches her take off her clothes.  Ives gently reprimands his son and son's friends.  Afterward, he sits at his desk and contemplates the cruciform on the wall,  The anguished body.  Ives doesn't know his son will soon be dead.  Instead, Ives thinks about a young Christ.  A Christ who would, like Robert, find pleasure in looking at a woman's "alluring body."  A human Christ.

I just returned from a Good Friday service.  Lots of chanting.  A recitation of a Gospel passion narrative.  Adoration of the Cross.  Communion.  It's a worship service focused on Christ's body.  His torture and death.  It's not a feel-good couple of hours.  But, always on Good Friday, there's the promise of Easter Sunday.  Sun.  Birds.  Rebirth.

I always find the three days of the Triduum taxing.  Not just because I will be playing the organ/keyboard for about five services in the next 72 hours.  It's the whole Jesus story that drains me emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  By early Easter Sunday afternoon, I will be ready for about a three-day nap.  But it's a good, renewing tiredness.  A joyful one.  That's God's love number forty-four:  Easter exhaustion.

Tonight, I will probably watch The Passion of the Christ.  It's sort of a little tradition for me.  It focuses me.  Reminds me that, no matter what crap is going down in my life, it's not so bad.  I've already been saved.  Sorry to get all evangelical, but this weekend does that to me.  Makes me put things into perspective.  God's looking out for me.  For example, I just found out that I received two classes to teach in the fall semester.  Eight credits.  That's what I was hoping for.  That's a God thing, I think.  And that's God's love number forty-five.

It's been a good Good Friday.

Once upon a time-time, a wizard named Bobby-Bob lived in a faraway kingdom where everybody repeated themselves.  The kingdom's name was One-Won.

One day-day, Bobby-Bob met a friend named Fred-Fred on Second-Second Street.  Bobby-Bob said, "Hey, I thought you were going on vacation-vacation!"

Fred-Fred shook his head.  "I couldn't afford it-it.  Didn't have enough gold-gold."

Bobby-Bob took out his wand-wand.  "You should have come to me-me," Bobby-Bob said.  "I can cast a Midas-Midas spell on you-you."

Fred-Fred said, "Really-really?"

Bobby-Bob nodded.  "Sure-sure."  He waved his wand in the air and said, "Bippity-boppity-boom-boom."

Fred-Fred immediately turned into a pile of horse manure.

Bobby-Bob frowned.  "I think I used the wrong wand-wand."

Moral of the story:  Be happy with your life.  It could turn to shit.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Amen amen