Holy Week Playbill
Things all dance themselves:
they come and hold out the hand
and laugh and flee — and return.
Everything goes, everything returns;
the wheel of existence rolls eternally.
Everything dies, everything blossoms forth again;
the year-of-existence eternally runs on.
Everything breaks, everything is integrated anew;
the same house of existence eternally builds itself.
All things separate, all things again greet one another;
eternally true to itself remains the ring of existence.
Existence begins every moment,
around every ‘Here’
rolls the ball ‘There’.
The middle is everywhere.
Crooked is the path of eternity.
—excerpt Thus Spake Zarathustra
By Friedrich Nietzsche, No. 57 The Convalescent p. 211
Holy week. One hardly needs a playbill. Today is Palm Sunday. In another 4 days, Maundy Thursday, the next day Good Friday, and then Easter Sunday. Many of us raised in the Christian tradition(s) know the story, and the roles. Even for the rest of us the signs are all around. The Lutheran church in town has three scaled down crosses in front, draped in purple bunting.
I suggest that it is worthwhile to pay attention to the “playbill” offered by Nietzsche, written in the final years of his life. Could not this be a rundown of the authentic, the true-great-drama that is enacted by the progression of Holy Week?
No need to audition for your part. Everyone, you and I have a role in this production.
