Thoughts on Good Friday
Apr. 15th, 2006 02:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brabbel123As I indicated in an earlier entry, I'm not a very religious person. Nevertheless, Good Friday always manages to get me into a certain pensive mood. It's the one day of the year that I take the time to ponder what happened during that past year - more so than New Year's Eve or Christmas which would invite such things much more. But it's not just my own life that passes through my thoughts, but in a sense Good Friday and what it represents for Christians brings home the cruelty of mankind then and how little we've outgrown that in the 2000 years since. To cover both, I spent my evening watching a documentary about how the crucifixion of Jesus might have taken place, beginning with the design of the cross and ending with the question as to what really killed him (and any other victim of this most painful way of punishment and humiliation the Romans apparently used quite regularly) and after that "Schindler's List".
Of course, the daily news are full of reports of the darkest sides of human nature, but usually I keep myself from sympathizing too much. On some days, though, it's good to just sit back and allow yourself to *feel*, to be reminded of humanity's darkest hours and accept the fact that it was humans just like yourself who comitted those unimaginably horrifying and utterly despicable acts - just as much as it was humans just like yourself who endured them. Good Friday usually is such a day.
I remember when I was quite little that TV stations aired no ads on Good Friday, the programme itself was designed to fit the mood of the day. "Ben Hur", "Quo Vadis?", and other movies such as these made their yearly appearance on TV - and they still do. But nowadays more and more stations schedule comedies which to me just seems somehow wrong. Anything would be better than this - and to be honest, "The Two Towers" which will be aired on Sunday fits the mood in a much better way than any comedy ever could. It's a movie about sacrifice, endurance beyond imagination, despair, but also hope and friendship, all of which I associate with the spirit of Good Friday.
Of course, the daily news are full of reports of the darkest sides of human nature, but usually I keep myself from sympathizing too much. On some days, though, it's good to just sit back and allow yourself to *feel*, to be reminded of humanity's darkest hours and accept the fact that it was humans just like yourself who comitted those unimaginably horrifying and utterly despicable acts - just as much as it was humans just like yourself who endured them. Good Friday usually is such a day.
I remember when I was quite little that TV stations aired no ads on Good Friday, the programme itself was designed to fit the mood of the day. "Ben Hur", "Quo Vadis?", and other movies such as these made their yearly appearance on TV - and they still do. But nowadays more and more stations schedule comedies which to me just seems somehow wrong. Anything would be better than this - and to be honest, "The Two Towers" which will be aired on Sunday fits the mood in a much better way than any comedy ever could. It's a movie about sacrifice, endurance beyond imagination, despair, but also hope and friendship, all of which I associate with the spirit of Good Friday.
