What I'm Not Going To Write About Good Friday

I've got Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony and chorus on repeat on my iTunes. Hallelujah. I've got my little Beethoven doll sitting on the piano. Easter Sunday is bearing down.

But first we have to get through Good Friday.

I don't have time to write today. So there are going to be a lot of typos. I was not going to write about my dad and the seven last words of Christ and I was not going to write about how these words and the music that often goes with them are the battleground of my faith.

Then I started to unpack the trunkload of groceries and Easter hoopla and I looked out the window and Tom Turkey was giving me a full show. Full feather layout.

In case you didn't know, turkeys are one of God's messengers to me. Really.

So I'm gonna write fast.

Five years ago, Palm Sunday, my dad conducted the Tiptonites in the Seven Last Words of Christ. He sang the solo, God, My Father, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me. That holy week, we got his full diagnosis. Terminal cancer. He died five months later. That cantata solo was the last thing I ever heard him sing. Well almost the last. The last public.

If Jesus said all those things on the cross.
And felt all those things.
Those terrible, terrible things.
--then so can we.

And we too, shall be raised.

Amen.