So
today is my 62nd Birthday. My
dad, who was a self-employed barber, retired at 62 ½. That ain’t happening for a couple reasons.
One, we don’t have enough in retirement yet, though we’ve been saving (and
unfortunately, more and more people are having to retire later, given the “fundamental
structural variables in our increasing globalized, inequitable economy ad
infinitum”). Two, I’m having too much
fun. Most days. At least part of every day. Today I am
There’s
a lot of hope in my day, and a lot of sorrow.
Mourning over the students murdered in Kenya, and the ongoing killing in
Syria, Iraq, so many parts of the world. Morning a dear friend from high
school, who also is an April birthday boy, who died last month. Hopeful, because it looks like diplomacy did
work (duh!) in the Iran talks. Hopeful,
because our church walked with four other churches throughout the neighborhood
today, praying for those in recovery, affordable housing, the arts, youth and
families and so many more joys and sorrows life has given us.
This
is the first time my birthday has been on Good Friday since…well, since my
birthday. My actual one, in 1953 (it could land on Good Friday 2-3 more times
before I die). My Mom would kid me when
I was a kid about my birth having caused her to miss Easter that year. My birthday landed on Easter three times:
when I turned 30—in Cuajimalpa, a barrio of Mexico City, while in seminary; the
year we got engaged and married; and the first Easter of New Creation/Nueva
Creación, the church we planted in Philadelphia. Alas, the next time it will be on Easter,
will be 2078, when I will be 123. Or
dead.
It
is strange celebrating my birthday on Good Friday—the two moods are quite
different, but the solemnity of the Christian feast also has joy and wonder in
it. The humanness of the story of Jesus’
death is so moving, and for most of my life—even during the time I was an atheist—the
humanness of Jesus has been connected to all human suffering, struggle and
triumph. I remember seeing in Mexico a
painting by Chilean artist Guillermo Nuñez, who was in a concentration camp
during the military dictatorship. It was
simple and profound: the barbed wire of the concentration camp came from the
left and the right to the middle of the picture, where it was twisted into a
crown of thorns. There are so many being
tortured and murdered still today, in so many places, and sometimes I just want
to give up. But I will now
(You
can read a letter from Nuñez from the period of the dictatorship at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1977/may/12/inside-chiles-prisons/)
For
40 years, I have fasted on Good Friday, as a spiritual discipline. For about that long, I have broken my usual
Lenten discipline (no coffee, sweets or alcohol—some good stuff too, like
trying not to be sarcastic and be patient) on my birthday.
Like a bit of Easter in the midst of the penitence. So I’ve thought a lot about what to do when
my birthday came along this year. Do I
fast, in keeping with Good Friday, or delight, in keeping with my birth? My wife suggested this morning that maybe I
could “celebrate Good Friday this year by not fasting”. That felt like a betrayal to me, but when I
checked my spirit on that, it was more to keep my tradition going, then to keep
the day as I have kept it.
So
I fasted until the close of our Community Way of the Cross, and then ate, in
fellowship with the other urban pilgrims.
It was a blessing to my spirit.
It also was a spark—no, more of a volcano eruption—to my flesh. If you don’t drink coffee or eat sweets for
weeks, maybe you shouldn’t have two
cups of coffee and two cookies on an
empty stomach. I think I’ll be down in
time for Easter!
Today,
I wrote poetry, as I do almost every birthday.
I will work on my Easter sermon, which I do every Good Friday. I also have to work on a funding proposal,
which is due Monday. As I’ve written
elsewhere, when writing a proposal, you have to detail what’s going to happen,
when it’s going to happen, how it will be measured, what will be
different. Really focused, linear and to
each point the funder asks for, explicitly or implicitly. Look out for surprises! Whereas celebrating a birthday, and the
celebration of the death of whom I love as the giver of all is so open-ended. There are surprises a plenty.
One
of the blessings of Face Book is receiving lots of birthday wishes. The best so far is a friend who saluted me as
“being a Servant of the Holy and joyful in the world.” May that be your blessing as well.
Be
beauty. Be justice. Be birth.
Patrick
