Easter is relevant to us today because it's all about hope rather than just The DaVinci Code ... In Easter - an irrational jolt to the complacent, winter-tired soul - we recount how God gives us life again and again where we believed there was only failure and death. Through Easter, we remember how Jesus, the original blogger, defined power: power based on sharing, on healing, on feeding, on giving, on including, on extending compassion, on blessing, and on reacting with dignity and non-violent resistance to external threats. The celebration of Easter reminds us that things could be, and should be, very different; that in the end, good always conquers evil, that love can prevail.
Calling the day of the Crucifixion ‘Good’ Friday is a designation that is peculiar to the English language. In German, for example, it is called Karfreitag. The Kar part is an obsolete word, the ancestor of the English word care in the sense of cares and woes, and it meant mourning. So in German, it is Mourning Friday. And that is what the disciples did on that day—they mourned. They thought all was lost. I think we call it Good Friday because, in pious retrospect, all that tragedy brought about the greatest good there could be. Why do we call it ‘Good’ Friday?
Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Branches of Palm: Stations of the Cross
Any other day of the year, they are simply a war memorial, a homeless shelter and a jail. But this Good Friday, they'll become stops in a symbolic retracing of Christ's final steps and reminders of everyday suffering.
The modern observances are becoming more popular among religious leaders trying to make the lessons of a 2,000-year-old crucifixion relevant today.
"It's just to bring to the surface suffering," said Linda Zeorlin, associate director of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph's Peace & Justice Office. "It's to keep the awareness, keep it smack in the face."
In Kansas City, the stops on the Good Friday procession are varied, from the federal building to a business that typically offers one-day gigs for the unemployed.
Along the way, the prayers and testimonies from participants will touch on many issues - war, economic inequity, unemployment, the death penalty, homelessness and government wrongdoing.
It was where, of course, the ultimate cry of human longing ran headlong into the silence of God, and was left, the cry was left out there like a huge, red hook trying to reach up into the heavens, but nothing received it. It's a day of being touched by the void; it's the day of the abyss ...
• Way of the Cross [The challenge of Easter goes beyond the church Google on Pope at Easter ; Hoppy Easter ]
• · Sydney Eyes turn to rising Son ; Jesus behaved like any rebbelious blogger The radical new challenge of Easter
• · · The Slavic Easter Monday tradition involves women getting buckets of water thrown over them and, if that isn't enough, getting beaten with a stick made from willow (Vrbov). In return the women, no doubt grateful that the men had made them fresh again, give the men glasses of schnapps, chocolate, sweets, money and decorated eggs. Girls give Easter eggs to their "whippers ; There's more to Easter eating than leg of lamb and chocolate bunnies. There are other things like hard-boiled eggs, sunka (smoked ham), klobasy (smoked sausage), slanina (smoked bacon), cvikia s krenom (a mixture of grated beets, horseradish root, salt, and vinegar) Green Thursday; White Saturday; Wet Monday
• · · · God made the world or he didn't In Love With Death ; The Random Acts of Kindness
• · · · · A historical foundation stone may have to be reconsidered after the discovery of a 16th century German map that used the word "Australia" 259 years before the explorer Matthew Flinders bestowed the name on the continent he had just circumnavigated. Terra Australis or New Holland as Australia Nation's naming mystery ; The fondest dream of the information age is to create an archive of all knowledge. You might call it the Alexandrian fantasy, after the great library founded by Ptolemy I in 286 BC The Great Library of Amazonia
• · · · · · NSW parliament staff have in-house yoga classes to help them de-stress, and even midwives say there's evidence that prenatal yoga can help women cope with childbirth. Yoga ; Henry James isn't famed for making people laugh, but when he's guarding his turf an evil sense of humor can rear its toothy head. As promised, funny Henry James