The day passed with no more than the usual fretfulness over the prospects of staying healthy.  Also, hoping, praying that the economy and society will  be intact, when the quarantine is lifted.  I did the usual seasonal chores around the house and yard.  It never occurred to me once that today was Good Friday.  This Friday before Easter Sunday is recognized as the day of Jesus death at the hands of the Roman occupiers of Palestine.  That’s the usual fate of trouble makers at the hands of a colonial power.  That has not changed.  However, I did not think about it even once, until this evening after our meal.

We enjoyed a traditional Friday evening meal of pizza.  Doesn’t every American household dine on pizza, the end-of-day-meal-menu on Fridays?  Tonight was special because the pizza was homemade.  The isolation of quarantine has benefits!  When we had finished I remembered a bottle of Kentucky Apple Brandy that I’d received as a birthday gift a few days ago.  I was struck by the thought the Brandy would be a good dessert.  Three other adults agreed so I fetched the the bottle and opened it.  I poured about two fingers worth into short glasses half filled with crushed ice.  The glasses were passed around and we each took a sip.  Do not let anyone tell you that 92 proof Brandy makes a good dessert.  The 46% alcohol tends to make the lips tingle, grow numb…  We added some coke and the “dessert” libation was more palatable. 

Then starting with a discussion about some relatives who live in Minnesota we began to share stories of the role that religion/faith has played in our lives.  And our stories did not fit the pattern, of everything in life falling into place, after finding Christ.  It was and is more complicated than that. 

I’ll just say that the ‘thought’ of Good Friday is similar to to the idea of a 92 proof Apple Brandy for dessert, a pleasant enough idea indeed.  The drinking of the libation even over ice might be similar to the actual experience of what happened to Jesus on that Friday when he became the object of Roman justice.   In Jesus case there was nothing he could do to make things go down easier, — except to die.

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I want to share this story with you.  It moved me.  It is a first hand account spoken by a nurse who serves in a hospital in New Orleans.  She begins her story with an account of this year’s Mardi Gras.  I will not forget the concluding line of her account, when she said “the Mardi Gras before the world changed.”  The story is entitled, On The Front Lines in New Orleans.   TO LISTEN CLICK HERE.

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EAST COKER by T.S. Eliot

IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

    Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

    The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

    The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

    The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.