Friday, April 10, 2009

Good Friday

Across the street from our place of worship, another congregation is in the midst of a fund-raiser: bar-b-q pork. On Good Friday.

A block down, the Volunteer Fire Department's sign announces that they are sponsoring a big yard sale on tomorrow.

One the many Pentecostal churches in town is having a "Hallelujah Service" tomorrow night at 6:00. They have such a shindig every month; at first I was annoyed that they would schedule it for the night before Easter, but then thought, "Maybe that is their version of the Easter Vigil."

I have already today walked the path along which I will lead a few of the faithful at noon--if any there are who brave the chilly breeze and the threat of storms. I did not take out my hearing aids, as I usually do when I walk in town, and so I heard the noise of Good Friday: the truck mechanics changing a tire that was bigger than the the fellow rolling it; a couple of punks in a pick-up truck making lots of gear-shifting, engine-revving noise as they headed, way too slowly for such a commotion but still way too fast, down a side street.

Traffic. Business as usual. Nobody much--even in the churches--taking making much that today God's Son was horribly and ironically enthroned on the cross.

Business as usual that first Good Friday, too.

1 comment:

Anita said...

This bothers me too. I remember as a child school was closed on Good Friday. One year the date was used as a snow make up day but all of my friends, myself included, were checked out of school in order to attend the 12:00 service.

Maybe it was because the catholic population was so high back home, but I was amazed that things weren't like that down here...And this is the Bible belt!