The Good Friday Life

Here on this Good Friday when Christians remember and observe the difficult journey of Jesus to the Cross I hope his followers will go deeper into the meaning of that scene.

I have said I don’t believe in an actual bodily resurrection of Jesus. But the Cross remains for me a fundamental part of my understanding of authentic religious truth. It carries for me a definition and a demonstration of love that moves and challenges and instructs me. It says, here was an example of genuine human love, so unfettered with moral demands or religious requirements or doctrinal expectations that it was simply offered with nothing but compassion for everyone even those who brought love to that cruel place.

Let us remember that Jesus was misunderstood, too; mostly by the religious crowd of his day. He did not fit into their theological definitions, their moral guidelines, their political agendas or their class structure. He was considered a misfit, a trouble maker, a foolish idealist. Although brilliant and imminently educated he kept companionship with the poor, the sick, the disabled, the addicted, the lonely and the left out. He did not socialize with the powerful or the wealthy; rather he often sat in squalor and cradled the diseased or mingled with children in play or visited the mentally ill or those in prison.

His was a life of amazing love, gentleness, grace and openheartedness. But it was also a life of great courage; a life dedicated to social change; a life of what Yale professor Harold Bloom has called “spiritual ferocity.”

I wish we could remember that life. Religion should not be simply a claim of truth but a search for it as well. Christianity should not be a competition between religions in which it attempts to defeat its opponents, but rather a way of life that seeks no harm to others, that is built around justice and humanitarianism and deep compassion. Shouldn’t it dare to love others completely? Everyone? Shouldn’t it make the world safe for human differences?

That is the message I get from the life and death of Jesus. I would like to make an attempt to live by that example. Not so I can go to heaven. Not in order to be always right. Not to elevate myself above any other single person or group. But just because it makes such good sense to try and live that way. And because it gives life a valiant, worthwhile purpose.

English author and philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, once said, “Create all the happiness you are able to create and remove all the misery you are able to remove.”

That’s a pretty good description of the life that today people remember ended in love on a cross.

If I had five minutes to evacuate--what would I take with me?

If I was told there was a bomb in my building and I had five minutes to evacuate my apartment I’d grab a grocery bag and quickly toss these items into it: 1. A photo of my grandparents, Mom and Pop and me, when I was 15 years old. I learned what love is made of from them. I learned what it is to be kissed on and hugged in arms so tender they felt like God’s arms. I discovered self worth from those two angels in human flesh. Of all the people in my life, they were the ones who made me feel I counted. Honestly, whatever capacity I have to love others came from them. 2. A sentimental, dog-eared, stars in the margin copy of Pat Conroy’s, “The Prince of Tides.” It is a book I have read three times and often return to for its wisdom. It is a harsh, profoundly tragic novel, the story of a family so broken and tortured by such flawed and wounded people that it is sometimes difficult to turn the next page. And yet it is the story of such Herculean courage and endurance that you want...

I Saw the Delicacy of Life

I was flying Across the deep And I saw the delicacy Of life Wrinkles on the faces Of the old So pure they glistened Like awards The joy of children Running with abandon Their laughter ringing Like chimes in the wind I saw the soft moving waves Across the sea And the trees releasing Their rainbow leaves Birds joined me on my flight And I saw the surface of their wings Adorned with patterns Glorious and unfurled I saw the tears of the sad And the smiles of the glad The suffering in mourning And the celebration of birth As I descended toward the ground Slowly, slowly, softly I saw the gentle grass of the field And smelled the fresh earth It was a perfect landing © 2018 Timothy Moody

A Losing Strategy

OPINION PAGE (c) 2024 Timothy Moody The Republican strategy to mock and judge others has passed into some form of insatiable, all-devouring nastiness. It is so poisonous and contemptuous that it is now just evil. Republican Governor of Arkansas, Sara Huckabee Sanders, suggested to a crowd of Trump supporters Tuesday night that Kamala Harris can't be humble because she doesn't have any children of her own. When will Americans decide they don't want government leaders who are so arrogantly insensitive, as Sanders was, that they offend everyone? This crude, villainous rhetoric transcends political partisanship. It’s evil, dangerous, and insulting. The poet Ezra Pound’s brief lines are appropriate here, “Pull down your vanity, How mean your hates” To suggest that someone cannot be humble because they don't have children is not just a cheap political comment. It's an attack on a person’s humanity and worth. And that is now, and has been fo...

The Unclad Soul

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