Good Friday Tenebrae
In the gathering gloom we gathered
in an out-of-place Gothic cathedral rising above nail salons and wig shops policed by the poverty of sirened fear, and we heard of The One nailed and crowned to the taunts and jeers of steely drunken soldiers anointing courage with vinegared wine. In the descending doom of evening, light through the stained-glass windows faded, obscuring the pictures of divine life shining there until eventually all we saw of Christ the King was a tangle of lead like that that tipped the whip beating a bloody course of chaos across meaning as one by one dimly burning wicks were snuffed out and humanity’s degradation, lifted up in darkness, rose higher with the simple cry, “Forgive.” © 2006, Tess Lockhart. All rights reserved. |