I am not now and have never been much into symbolism which is kind of bad news when you realize that some of the most important Christians beliefs hinge on it....you know like communion.
Last night I attended our community Good Friday service. I didn't want to go. I was held hostage (emotionally anyway) because I am the music director at the First United Methodist Church here. Many years ago someone came up with the bright idea of having a mass choir from all the churches do a song for the community Thanksgiving service and since then we are stuck doing it for Good Friday as well. As a choir director this means I am forced to go to two services a year I would otherwise ignore.
If it weren't for the mass choir (which lately only consists of the Presbyterians and us) no one would go to the Good Friday Service. I am beginning to resent this. Sure I know it is Holy Week but do I have to go to church every day because of it? How about getting a few of those once a year people who only attend church on Easter to come just a couple more Sundays a year and let those of us who are still regular attenders enjoy a spring holiday when we actually had time to do something other than go to church.
Is this making me bitter? Yes! This probably stems from the fact that not only is it Holy Week but I have a major musical production, Guys and Dolls opening next week and have been painting sets and picking up props from the four corners of the earth all week.
Last night the Good Friday service was a Tenebrae service, one of those services where the lights are lowered after each Bible passage. By the time we got to the community choir's number the lights were so low I couldn't read my music which made the entire reason for being a the service pointless for me.
They have a great pipe organ at Westminster Presbyterian and two very talented organists but I am used to the Methodist style of hymn singing, fast and furious. Every hymn went on forever and remember this is Good Friday so we aren't talking about tunes like Irving Berlin's Happy Holidays and I am sitting in a sanctuary so dark I can't read the tiny print in the hymnal even with my industrial strength reading glasses.
At least the Presbyterians' new minister didn't take the opportunity to show off his preaching prowess. New ministers in town are always pressed upon to host the community service giving people from other congregations the opportunity to give thanks that they have the minister they do or call a quick meeting of the pastor parish committee to discuss getting someone who can preach like that new guy the Baptists have (Actually in Sparta the Baptists don't join in community services....no one else in town can quite come up to their standards of holiness apparently)
After a prelude, seven scriptures, seven readings, seven brief commentaries, a pastoral prayer, an offertory, four hymns and three special numbers including a trumpet solo by one of the ministers who played a medley of every hymn ever written that included the word cross in it even once we were dismissed in silence.
Excuse me???? Silence? Oh yeah it's Good Friday so we have to be all depressed and everything. The only payoff for attending these community services is getting a chance to socialize with people from other congregations afterwards and they want us to leave in silence?
I guess I should be thankful that I wasn't attending services in St. Louis where one parish's roof got blown off during the service. Now that would be something worth getting depressed about.
"They treated him like a common criminal!" The mother of an eight year old boy who broke off a sharp piece of molding so he could kill his teachers claims after police pepper sprayed him.
Gee ya think so lady? I do too! He was treated like a common criminal because that's what you are raising.
It wasn't the first time police had been called to the school to try to defuse a situation concerning your son. After all the third time is the charm. The child has since been moved to a special school where they can better handle this type of situation. Hmmm I thought they closed Alcatraz.
The kid isn't on medication (which I don't believe in any way) and he readily admits he has anger issues.What this kid needs is a teacher with anger issues themselves so they can put an end to his shenanigans. Maybe someone from the WWF would do. But these aren't just shenanigans. This kid is a clear and present danger. And he isn't going to get any smaller. From the looks of him it looked like he had been hitting the HoHos pretty hard already.
He and his mother were making the morning news show rounds this week and I am sure they have a lawyer looking out for their rights. What about the rights of the other kids in his classroom? I only read the online reports but I hope someone at the Today show asked the woman how she managed to raise a junior terrorists like this.But I am sure they coddled her too just like the schools are forced to do.
I can assure you that every time some adult maniac commits some incredible crime there are at least twenty or thirty of their former teachers at home watching the news thinking to themselves, "I knew this would happen one day."
He needs to be taken away from her and put somewhere where someone will discipline him. These are always the same kind of parents that either say, "I don't know what to do with him," or are constantly on guard making sure their little cherub's rights aren't being violated.
She is right about one thing though. They shouldn't have used pepper spray. They should have tried something a little less painful a long time ago.
Has anyone else noticed how absolutely lousy weekend television is lately? I am talking about what the networks routinely offer up on Friday and Saturday nights. It's all reruns or as the networks like to call them encores. Even daytime programming is airing "encores" now. I don't need to tune in to All My Children to see Erica's eleventh marriage for the second time.
But I have a conspiracy theory regarding the weekend programming or lack of programming that the networks are routinely offering up now. I believe they are in cahoots with the movie industry to make television so bad that we are forced to go to the movies to find some entertainment on weekends. And what will we see when we get there? B-rated films starring television stars like Jennifer Aniston (yawn) and Kevin James (double yawn)
Lately I can't even find a film worth going to. The passing of Elizabeth Taylor just serves to remind us that there are no bigger than life stars anymore. Brad dumping Jennifer for Angelina hardly compares to the Elizabeth/Eddie Fisher/Debbie Reynolds love triangle.
These days the most I can wish for is a marathon of RuPaul's Drag Race on Logo or episode after episode of Top Chef on E! The latter is having serious consequences for my diet. Every time one of those chefs stirs up a chocolate mousse or an eclair filled with exotic ingredients I rush to the kitchen where the best I can rustle up is a pudding cup or a Twinkie.
But I refuse to succumb to the power of the movie studios....until Streisand finally gets the final go ahead from Arthur Laurents to film the remake of Gypsy or Colin Firth reads the phone book on camera.
