Good Friday Service in the National Cathedral

I clicked on the link to the YouTube video just now of the Good Friday evening service in the National Cathedral. I thought I'd poke my nose in and see what they were up to. I stayed, profoundly moved, through the whole thing.

Nothing shakes up your priorities like death, probably. Twice in the past couple of weeks I've participated in two "death and dying" seminars, with people who, like myself, are now ready to think and talk aloud about the end of their days. And nothing focuses your attention more acutely and effectively.

I've shared the fact that I have a terminal disease. I have not shared my frustration with how difficult it is to talk about this in a meaningful way. Death - and dying - remain a taboo topic in our culture and most people who do not feel it breathing down their neck much prefer to keep it that way. It's especially difficult, I think, in America, where being bright and optimistic is among our most ardently pursued national goals, and where we are inclined to think all problems have solutions. This one doesn't, and that makes it a real no-no.

When I say "seminars" I am referring to an organization called Death Cafe which has been going on for eleven years now and has chapters in many countries. If you're interested in more information, I suggest you check out their FaceBook page. I just want to mention it in passing here. And I say "seminars" - plural - because I just got together with friends to take up the same topic privately, as well. The word "seminar" is my choice of a way to describe it - an intimate group of folk gathering around a table - or in a zoom call - to get below the surface of an issue.

I mention these two death-and-dying seminars to explain why I stuck with the Good Friday service at National Cathedral. There is an additional reason: one of my two beloved dogs has gone blind and is suffering from Cushing's Disease. She doesn't have a lot of time, and we are now milking every hour of every day with her while we still can.

I didn't set out here to talk about my personal situation. I wanted to reflect on the fact that the Christian narrative centers on death and resurrection. I don't share, as I've made plain elsewhere numerous times, a belief in resurrection, or in reincarnation. I'm too grounded in non-theistic rational thinking for such a hope or dream or wish to find purchase in any notion of life after death. And for years I lived in a state of rage against organized religion because I saw it as the birthplace and prime mover of homophobia. I had no interest in the doctrine and I had positively hateful feelings toward the practices. Those negative feelings only increased as I grew more sympathetic to the goals of the feminist project, and as the stories of child abuse grew to expose ever more weakness and hypocrisy among the clerical set. There was a time when, if I could have pushed a button which would make all organized religion go away, I would have pushed it.

Time cured me of that. I now see that rage, that loathing, as wrong-headed. It lacks nuance, and brings forth my favorite metaphor of life - the blind men and the elephant - our propensity to miss the woods for the trees, to dwell on the part instead of the whole, to miss the complexity of the big picture. I now find it quite natural to distinguish between the bullies who want to beat up on anybody they perceive as not of their tribe, on the one hand, and people with a much to be admired sense of humility probing for meaning in life and hoping there is a creator-mentor father-figure who will help them through the rapids.

I was a very religious youth. And I had a thing for the dramatic. I climbed the twenty-eight steps of the Scala Santa in Rome on my knees back in 1961 before attending Easter Mass in St. Peter's Basilica where I got to sit right up close to Pope John XXIII as he officiated. I used to attend mass during lent with my catholic friends every morning before school. And I found my way - can't remember how or why - to the Episcopal Church on Good Friday, where I discovered that Anglicans/Episcopalians gave the catholics a good run for their money going into the dark places of religion. In my protestant church I was told the reason we don't have crucifixes is that the papists dwell on the misery and suffering and death of Christ, while we protestants accentuate the resurrection. Another example of American culture being defined as protestant, catholics being still foreign in the America I grew up in. Problem is, for other reasons I can't explain, I was drawn to this covering of the cross in black and extinguishing the candles in the Good Friday in the darker churches.  More real somehow.

All this came back to me just now as I sat through the powerful and wonderful service at National Cathedral - an Episcopal service. The dwelling on the dark side of life - death as the dark side of life. The religious people do it because they want to honor their Savior. I do it because I want to get a better grip on death and dying as a stage of life I have now entered.

I still cannot imagine becoming a religious person. I suspect I'll be a non-theist for the duration. But I see no contradiction in sharing with religious people the common ground of shared culture. I am not religiously Christian, but I am culturally Christian. It's all around me and I'm ashamed it took me so long to recognize it. The stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral, Brahms' German Requiem, Negro Spirituals, the desire to contribute to the building of Notre Dame de Paris, it's all part of the rich and exciting world of beautiful things that help make life worth living. 

For years now I've enjoyed celebrating Shabbat with Jewish friends on Friday nights, and seders on Passover. I love being invited by these people and am happy to share in their embrace of their traditions. And if you take the time to listen to this Good Friday service at National Cathedral - and I hope you will - reflect on the fact that America would be culturally much poorer without the beauty of this musical tradition the slaves gave the rest of us.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, were you there when they crucified my Lord?
(Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?
(Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross?

(Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Well, were you there when the stone was rolled away?
Were you there when the stone was rolled away?
(Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble
Were you there when the stone was rolled away?

Put away once and for all, I urge you, the notion that the contemplation of death is a downer.

In my view, it is an important missing piece of what a good meditation on life should include.