Good Friday

I wrote a feature story for the paper about the student-run liturgy committee. The student head of liturgy says she got like 3 hours of sleep during the Triduum last year. That's intense. And basically what I tried to do was let people know the committee exists without shining a spotlight on them. They see it as a ministry and they do it out of love for God. The members that I interviewed were humble servant types, not inclined to pat themselves on the back. So I tried to write a story that respected their man-behind-the-curtain presence. One of those people is my friend Anne. She is in charge of art and environment. Basically she and her partner do their best to make the field house (a place where sweaty guys bounce a ball back and forth) look like a place of worship. It is no easy feat.

But when I walked into the Good Friday Liturgy I was dumbstruck. Nothing but the stage/altar was decorated. If I were to look at it critically I would acknowledge that the fieldhouse ambiance was still there and even the faint smell of rubber and sweat still hung in the air. But I was there to meditate on the death of Christ. So all those things faded and I saw the stage piled with bricks and stones. These natural textures and colors gave the appearance of half walled city and half rocky hillside. My favorite part of the display was the broken pots on pedestals. There wasn't a crucifix with a bloody Jesus...just huge broken vessels of clay next to a big wooden cross. It was simple and yet it communicated clearly.

The veneration of the cross during the Good Friday service is something that my previously evangelical self couldn't wrap my brain around. Why do people kiss this piece of wood that isn't really the cross? Jesus died for my sin and it's done, why do people get in line like cattle to kiss this thing. It seemed meaningless to me.

But last night I had a bit of an epiphany...

One thing I remember about being away from the Church is the spirituality of evangelicalism. It always seemed an intangible thing, my salvation. I would pray and believe that God heard me because the bible said He did. I would pray and listen for The Voice, which rarely came. I would wait for the stirring of my spirit/emotions and when they remained unmoved, I would feel defeated and incapable of these basic practices of spirituality.

I'm a sensual person and being someone who's love language is physical touch, I have often railed at God for not giving me the husband I thought I should have. I've often cried about being lonely and not having a physical person to love me. I know we're supposed to fall in love with Jesus and all that, but Jesus can't curl up on the couch with you, ya know? "It's just not the same," I'd say, shaking my fist at the ceiling.

I realized last night that this Church of mine has provided a way for me to experience God with my body. I understood this in theory but last night the understanding made a free-fall into my heart. As I stood in line (like cattle) I realized that I couldn't wait to use this body of mine to bend and venerate the cross. To feel the wood on my lips for a fraction of a second. To kneel and feel the hard gym floor on my knees. To bow as the Blessed Sacrament was brought in. To smell the incense and to see the smoke of our prayers rising to heaven. To let the physical motions of my body become acts of worship in and of themselves.

Whew...it's amazing because then my emotions come -- in their proper order -- as a by product of worship. I do not worship because I am emotionally moved to do so, I worship because God is God.

Tonight is the vigil. It is one of my favorite celebrations of the whole year. From what I've heard it's 7 hours long. It is followed by an all-night resurrection party. If I can make it, I'm brining my camera to take a picture of the sun coming up on Easter morning....

But I'm not making any promises.