Good Friday, Easter, 2026

It has been a tough week.  Mostly because I bought the Jeep and acquired a debt that bothered me. I’d traded in my 2017 Mini Cooper and last weekend decided to sell my truck, and camper. They were at Adventure RV waiting to have the one happy jack reinforced.  I worried the night before fearful of the drive out on the highway on my Vespa. It was just a foreboding, an uncertainty. I have this with age now, wondering will I live this truly minor event.  The ride was actually exhilarating .  I wasn’t cold either having dressed sufficiently.  

Kevin said they could get the camper off and I could take the truck in a couple of hours. I rode the Vespa over to Victors. In his Ram we headed out for breakfast. He had his regular omelette while I had sausages and eggs.  His other Veterans came in. Also some folk from the program. He enjoyed chatting with them as they passed out table. I enjoyed the sausages. All round pleasant country men connecting. We talked of guns and the gun buy back too.  

Then I was back at Kevin’s Adventure RV where he was kind enough to use a forklift to load the Vespa onto the F350.

Now I drove back to Vancouver and unloaded so much ‘stuff’ , good ‘stuff’ mind you , at the Maple Leaf Storage Locker, The Honda 3000 generator, tools from under the seat, dog toys of course.  Then I brought back the heavy tail gate and the 4 winter tires.  

The next day on the Grok AI its said the resale price was $40,000. I talked to Ford and the sales man hadn’t got back to me so I phoned next day. I’d taken a day off work to get the Truck because nothing was open on Friday Saturday.

Expectation was the key.  With myself I expected to pick up the truck , drive it home unpack it and sell it. I was exhausted and waited till the next day.

 Then I drove in to Ford and the salesman began dickering because he said I hadn’t told him it was gas not diesel. I lost it and said if I have to do surgery and need to know your blood type I’m going to ask that. I don’t expect you to know that. He wanted me to come back on Monday. He was trying to do the best but I wass frustrated so much that I couldn’t get turned around with all the new cars about. So I went into service which I’ve always loved at Ford.  Told the guy my problem and he understood and drove the truck out of the lot to the gate.  I then drove to another Ford and they suggested because it has the scratches that they wouldn’t buy it because they’d need to fix that .  Canada drives had offered me $33,000 sight unseen but the Journey folk had said that though they were Jeep I could bring it back there when I was buying the Jeep originally. 

I did and Ryan was great. He took pictures, come back next day if the price was fine. He put it out for auction the next day. $30,000 was fine. This was day 3 of the process. That day i drove the truck over. He got the service guys to take my Vespa off the back. I drove home on the Vespa. Great drive.

Monday their accountant was supposed to cut a check.  They didn’t get back to me. I’d signed over the truck and left the truck and was involved in a virtual clinic then I phoned their finance folk and really complained .I was dealing with a woman and police and a machete. I’d ridden my Vespa to the DTES. I had so many people wanting me and here I was catastrophizing about fianances.

I normally don’t think about that because I trust God yet it brings back the divorce where she was on Cocaine and crazy and not showing up at work,  up all night. The dog and I had no place to stay and it was raining and cold and I couldn’t ‘t get any food  or sleep. I had told her I can treat 100 crazy people or her but not both. I needed to get away from the screaming insanity but she refused to go to treatment or get help. I saw a psychiatrist who said my problem was my wife’s severe adiction.  I went to  my so called friends because I knew my dog would be welcome. We’d tried a couple of hotels but they didn’t take dogs.  The biker ‘friends’ realize that I was weak and vulnerable so took the opportunity to capitalize .I’d been their ‘friend’ when I was always financially = well but now tthey stole $30,000 from me along with my truck. In the past we’d all smoked some pot and drunk some wine but in the last year cocaine had hit. 

Fortunately for me I had a bad redaction but for them it was  severe addictions like my wife.  I was now the source of money .So there’s some anniversary trauma shit happening. She’d blown the transmission on my truck and continued to drive it and they kept the truck supposedly in exchange for a car I never got. I hate when the flashback and nightmares come back. I left her and the marriage and the practice that night when she continued drugs and wouldn’t go to treatment.  The lies were worst.  It was when I was with the biker friends drunk at night in the woods that I felt I was outside God’s grace.  That was the height of my ego that I felt I could be beyond God’s love. It was an epiphany of arrogance and self pity.  That day a Christian friend called and I told him I wanted to go back to church .   

Ryan then came through ant the Jeep  and gave m the cheque the accountant had screwed up with.  Now there was no bank open. Next day at noon after an easy morning virtual clinic with my cleaning ladies arriving I went into TD leaving the dog in the Jeep. I deposited the cheque. The loan is with RBC the bank I had with the ex decades back .and perhaps that triggered thing too..  I’ll move the money from TD to RBC after Easter.  

With all that I missed Maundy Thursday, the Last Supper and the Washing of the feet. I remember years I’d eat pancakes and participate each day of the Holy Week. That was when I was attending St. John’s or Christ Church. At. St. Barnabus I’ve been more lax.  

As my  friend George says., “it’s only money’ and today that’s the ‘caddilac’ problem.  We call it a caddilac problem because it’s not a real problem like the time the guy went through the stop sign and hit me on my bike throwing me over the hood bouncing off the roof and then landing on my head and neck on the road. I’d been going to see my Priest in preparation for adult baptism.  Lying on the road I felt I couldn’t fight anymore and was picked up in the stretcher and taken by ambulance to UBC. I was afraid my neck was broken and I couldn’t feel.   I just waited for the MRI results after I’d had the scan. The doctor came. His name was Dr. Priest. He told me nothing was broken.  I was so greateful.  That wasn’t a Cadillac problem  My close friend was quadriplegic and told me when the staff didn’t show up , some dispute with her boss,  he’d said he couldn’t empty his bladder and suffered all morning until his son showed up.

I’ve identified with Jesus’s suffering.  Money problems aren’t the cross but illness and death of loved ones and catastrophes are. I was just so self absorbed in things not going on my time.,  Something I planned would be done in a day maybe two took 5. The $40,000 I was hoping for turned out to be $30,000. I was physically utterly fatigued with my chronic back pain and weakness overwhelming at times .  But it was ‘my way’ not .;thy way’ and I was just catastrophizing and feeling sorry for myself.  These moods and paranoid thoughts were Norm in the days before I got sober. I went from a millionaires with yacht and swimming pools and my dangerously insane ex treated as ‘normal’ managing my affairs while I got help . Insane. Now I know that’s the world of alcohol and ego and the people I knew in that day.  That was a bad year financially and physically but spiritually it was the best.  I loved getting to know Father John better.  I met George and I prayed and meditated and walked my dog and was blessed to know Dr. Lam, Dr. Gutowski, Dr. Baker and Dr. Graham.  I considered suicide that year.  Now nearly 30 years later I have so much to live for.

The F350 Lariat edition super duty with sun roof and long box 4x4 had been with me 7 years. I thought of the hunting and fishing and all the good times camping with Laura and Gilbert then Laura and Madigan. It was a really good truck and now it was gone.  The mini had been Gilbert and Laura and my ride. When Gilbert  became blind I traded the Miata sports car  we loved in for the Mini so I could take Laura and him to the Oregon beaches and cry watching him run free knowing he wasn’t going to bang into anything.  Sailing we’d dinghy into a beach so he could run free on the sand 

I’m aging and dealing with loss. I sold the sailboat getting a pittance for it. I don’t have time to invest in sales. When I wrote a book I was supposed to market it and didn’t because it’d rather do clinical work. I like being of service.  

I’m here now in a motorhome with a jeep. The jeep with a tow kit will be able to be pulled behind my motorhome. I”ll probably sell the Vespa and quad because the jeep can do everything.  I’m reducing and minimizing. I have the money in the bank to pay for the motorhome and jeep but something to do with taxes and such makes it better I just have the loan and pay it off over he next 5 to 10 years but then I don’t know if I’ll have 10 years though I expect it’s another quarter country to go unless I get shot at again or go over a cliff or crash a motorcycle or car.  I have a guardian angel or many and have been blessed for sure.

I used to love the Travelling Wilburies “Handle Me with Car’.  Now I’m more likely to play Holy Holy Holy on the stereo.  I love Third Day and am enjoying the audio in the Jeep . I’m in transition.  From Sailboat to Truck and Camper I’m now in Thor Motorhome and 2 door Jeep Wrangler. It feels right. 

Laura is coming over today.  She has a week of holiday and Madigan and I are so looking forward to her being with us. When she came to LA I rented a car for a couple of thousand so I won’t need to do that . I’l have savings too not needing to pay licenses or storage on all the vehicles. 

I’ve been studying Orthodxoy.  Kevin Anna and the God kids have found a home in a Greek Orthodox Church. Because my church is going to hell in a hand basket with King Charles sounding more Muslim than Christian and the pope celebrating Islam I’m considering what church I can attend.  I’m enjoying learning about Constantinople and the Orthodox and Oriental churchs.  My priest was caught up in the Climate Change UN political money scheme.  She’s partial to the South Americans having lived there. I just see the IPCC as a scam created by the Communist Chinese and orchestrated by the communist Maurice Strong and supported by Pierre Trudeau who allied himself and Canada with Cuba and Castro.  Now Carney allies himself with Communist China and is annti anmerica and freedom. 

 Israel and America are at war with Iran who was the principle ally of communist China.  WHO went over to the dark side in covid when I studied the genetic code and knew they were lying about the poor Pangala.  Fauci then was lying to the President and the whole lies and corruption of Justin Trudea and autopen Biden was going on. Jan. 6th was a scam as big as the declaration of martial law in Canada over a peaceful demonstration.

I’ve been trying to maintain peace of mind.  I remember Anita telling me that she and Willy tried to play it safe in their latter years of service and work and remember how the wonderful wonderful Godly Phillip was persecuted by the authorities for his pro life stand.

I don’t want to be a martyr. I’m more like Peter and would rather be like John. I ‘m from cowboy stock and want to die with my boots on in bed at a hundred or so.  Dad wanted to go when they wouldn’t;t let him sit outside. I don’t think I’ll do well institutionalized.  But for now I want to camp 

I have everything I need. I’ve money in the bank but no pension so fear when carney gloats about having trillion of Canadian pension and his face and the Quatar faces all look like the my biking hunter ‘friends’ who betrayed me taking my money and belongings and dividing them among themselves.

The guards took Jesus’s clothes and divided them in four among themselves.  The Roman administrator Pilate had put up a sign calling him “king of the Jews’.  

Canada seems metaphorically to be plundered by Trudeau and Carney. The great replacement is the removal of the Christians and replacement of them with Muslims.  The Crusades are taught falsely.  Islamophobia is punished yet it is the Muslims persecuting Christians and Jesus. 

Our PM joined with the Hammas Palestinian terrorists and antisemitism  after Hammas killed hundreds of young Israelis at at music festival. It turned out all the billions of aid money was used by Palestine to build a veritable warrior cave system under Gaza to attack Israel.  Yet there’s Carney clelebrating terrorists like Trudeau did.

I feel sometimes looking at Canadian politics this last decade I’m in the asylum.  Not ironically the schizophrenics votes the same distributions in Canada as Montreal and Toronto.

I was going to go to church for the Good Friday mass but have stopped here to journal.

I will go to mass tomorrow with Laura .She asked me to get Hamm for Easter meal.   

I should stop social media contributions on Facebook. X is more mature.   Zuckerberg is pro communist china.  Communism is the religion of aetheism.  

Today is the day Jesus was crucified. In the Gospel of John his last words are ‘it is finished’.

In Mark ‘Jesus cried out “Eloi. Eloi. Lema sabachthani!’

“My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”

Maundy Thursday - Holy Week 2017

Maundy means the ‘washing of feet”.  Thursday was the day of the Last Supper.  Jesus washed the feet of his disciples then. “a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him” Jesus said.   This gave rise to the description of Jesus as the “Servant King’.  Humility is to be admired and not seen as a sign of weakness as it is by the cowardly braggart. The first should be last and the last should be first.  Suffer little children to come under to me. You must be like children to enter the Kingdom of heaven. All of what Jesus stood for was that it’s in the little and the great that God is found.  It was thought before that the Great were the venue to God.  The peasant did not know God but through the King or High Priest.  Now Jesus, son of God, son of man, said differently.  

I’m heavy with age and work and threats and betrayal.  I’m asking you God, I’m asking you Jesus, restore my childlike enthusiasm.  Give me the desire to carry on.  I see you as the one who told the truth.  At the Last Supper Jesus said that Judas would betray him.  It’s been said even God couldn’t pick 12 men who would not betray him.  I look at politics and I see the deceit and lies and betrayal. In my own life I meet everyone these days in fear that they will lie and attack me for their profit.  Judas betrayed God for 30 pieces of silver. But some say that Judas was the truest for he triggered humanity’s salvation.  These events unfolded later but at the supper Jesus spoke of the betrayal.  

The greatest harm comes from betrayal because betrayal is always the work of a friend, a loved one.  

It is the sense of betrayal we feel in terms of the institutions that we serve, the sense of betrayal of our government representatives.  But that is through the whole of the Jesus story.  it’s the leaders of society that blinded by their wealth and privilege kill God.  

Even today it is the government that promotes and protects abortion.  It’s is the government that now that favours suicide.  It’s the government that profits from tobacco and alcohol and would add cannibis to it’s source of income for increasingly nefarious hedonistic means.  

Jesus.  You a carpenter, teacher, healer. You lived under the local authority of Herod the Jew and under the representative of Rome's Pilate born during the reign of Caesar Octavian.  You taught the Kingdom of God and Love.  Christianity is the religion of Love.  Agape and Filios and yes even eros.  

I am crying for you daily. I see you in the beauty of nature, in moments with others, in the relationships we share, in the love of my dog even.  Everywhere the Holy Spirit comes. I pray, Holy Spirit Come. You are here now. The Resurrected Christ.  

I wash your feet and you wash mine.  You wash my feet and I wash your.

At the last supper you say that the bread is your body and the wine is your blood and we share in the celebration of eating and drinking God for God is all but this is you in death and life and resurrection. This is a reminder of the Last Supper.  In the days of Passover.  

Thank you Jesus.  

Holy Week 2017

I attended Palm Sunday Service at Cariboo Community Church with Laura, Kevin, Anna and the God Kids.  They were a thorough entertainment. They walk on chairs and crawl on the floors just like Gilbert does.  And the aisles of the church, wide open freeways for fast running children’s feet.  Anna took them out during the sermon.  A serious affair about Passover,  Jews being saved from judgement because of their personal relationship with God and their obedience to God. Sabbath and the Last Supper.  Purification with Hyssop.  Hyssop figures in the psalm of recovery 51.  Hyssop is on the vinegar given to Jesus as he dies on the cross.

Now this is Holy Week.  Palm Sunday was the celebration of Jesus entering triumphant into Jerusalem riding a donkey. I’ve forever loved the donkey.  Perhaps because it figured in the first childhood Sunday School stories.  

We’d go to church with my parents and go downstairs during the service to have a class room of Christian teaching with colouring books of Christian stories.  Later we’d rejoin the parents after the sermon.  Not long away with strangers. I remember well the Sunday School at Trinity Baptist, Fort Rouge, Winnipeg. Later I’d teach Sunday School for a couple of years at Fort Garry United.  Looking back I realize I’ve been of service. I’ve participated.  There’s still too much time watching tv.  Not enough of it watching the Ben Hur’s of today.  Uplifting inspiring tales of Biblical proportion but spins off instead like Star Wars and Star Trek.  I loved studying Joseph Campbell and the role of myth in society.

As a psychiatrist we say if you don’t agree to a collective insanity then you’re doomed to having a personal one.  My favourite collective insanity is the legal agreements we all sign ‘in faith’ with computer companies where on the next to final page we have agreed to give our soul and our kidneys to Microsoft or Apple.

WWIII is heating up.  A competing channel.  I don’t think anything will come of it.  Russia, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Israel and the US all raising the stakes on this Easter week.  Meanwhile the American navy is steaming towards North Korea when the kid, another one, like our own Pretty Boy Prime Minister Trudeau, has blasted off midrange missiles. Sarin in the Middle East and Tomohawk Missiles and the threat of nuclear missiles in the east.  

Jesus, we say was son of God. In the Hindu tradition a man evolves from slug to God. But in this Christian twist on an old story, God descends into Man then resurrects.  The Sufis, despite their Muslim warlord masters believe in the revolutions of the spiritual.  The Christian Jacobs Ladder mysticism is the rising and falling.  The descent and resurrection.  It’s a feeling thing to a mystic.  Meanwhile the Kundalini is another bi-directional thing.  Our minister today at Cariboo Community Church talked of the blood.  

Blood is the circular pumping flow.  The greath is in and out but the blood goes round and round.  It’s all movement. Our minds are the only part that’s stuck.

And Jesus was ever obedient to the prophecy and to the call.

He didn’t have to return to Jerusalem. It’s like New York and the girl from Kentucky.  She didn’t have to go to New York or LA even. If you stay at home you’re safe.  Avoid the big city.  Jesus was from Galilee. He could have stayed safe there but the real egos of the world are always in the government towns.  For us in Canada it’s Ottawa. Her in BC it’s Victoria. For Americans its Washington. For Russians Moscow.  If Jesus was in France today he’d have to go to Paris to be crucified. In China he’d be crucified in Bei Jing.  The Ego of the dictators, republicans, kings and queens and committee leaders and czars and prime ministers demand that Jesus be upstage.

Every day in my moment to moment life there’s God’s will and my will. I say ‘Thy Will Be Done’.  I want to do the right thing but mostly I avoid pain.  Jesus could have avoided pain. He asked that this cup be taken from him.  But he was betrayed and the Government of the day Crucified him.  

To the Christian this world isn’t the big deal it is to the Herod’s of the day and the beheaders of today and yesterday.  Herod wanted to sleep with his daughter so beheaded John the Baptist on a whim.  Beheading wasn’t just an ISIS or French thing. It’s biblical.  So much is. But the education today doesn’t teach history and kids are easily impressed by the plagiarism of television.  All the old myths and stories of Biblical proportion made into cartoons for wealth and profit.

Not that wealth and profit aren’t a concern. The disciples of Jesus carried Swords. Swords don’t come cheap. I was looking at Glocks and a good one puts you back a thousand.  All the men and women around the presidents and prime ministers and Kings of Saudi and Syria are carrying a thousand dollars of hard ware on their hips or under their arm pits.

Jesus said “My Kingdom is not of this world”.  

Way before physicists rediscovered alternative worlds Jesus was speaking of heaven.  Position is important. Heaven is in here not out there.  The Yogi sings “I am the bubble make me the sea”.  My perception to the psychologist today is like the tip of an iceberg. So much more goes on within.  All the linear journeys of the Bible , from Egypt to the promised land, from Eden to outside Eden, from Bethlehem to Jerusalem are metaphorical.  They’re true just was the Temple of the Jews in Jerusulam is historic and true.  

Alpha is a series of dinners and discussions which goes on in church for anyone who wishes to become a Christian or learn what Christians believe.  There’s the various Creeds and Third Day sings the Creed best of them all but practically it’s just an old fashioned Community Hall.  The Cariboo Community Church had that pentecostal feel. The Hillsong movie catches that Spirit filled grace of the pentecostals. Lots of song and celebration with education in sermons.  Everyone is welcome.

We all says ‘Come to the Table.   Father Matthew at my church helps the homeless old men and then goes to the opera with his lovely wife.  He’s in the guts and gore of creation uplifted by the word of God and music of the ages.  He says, “just think of it as your mothers dinner.”  Mom was always glad to have her kids come for dinner.  

The Prodigal Son, one of my all time favourite Biblical stories, and the masterpiece of painting in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg is about a father inviting his son home after his son has been eating with pigs.  They killed the fatted calf in celebration.

The Last Supper of the Holy Week is Jesus’s gathering with his closest.  It’s the basis of communion.  We celebrate the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine.  The bread is the body and the wine is the blood. It’s a sacrificial symbolic cannibalistic rite. Robert Graves in Golden Bough followed the myth of the sacrifice of the king for the tribe throughout history.

Jesus, the pure, is the sacrifice of man.  

It makes the world go round.

The sun comes up.

We get to live on.

The Pharisees,cynical and arrogant get to judge. The Sanhedrin pompous and vacuous with fear as Sanhedrins always are releases the real rebel because the rebels of the world are nothing compared to the saints.  The saints had a bad lot, killed off by Nero and finally that entertainment stopped only by Constantine because Christians were the only ones truthful in the days of pagans.  

We are slouching towards Bethlehem.

We are nearer Jerusalem. 

There’s death and laughter.  This is just a dream like every day and every night and we awake and it’s all been a play.  We may go again or that may be it.  And for some who want nothing of immortality they might well get the peace of eternity.  But I’m in for the journey.

I’m following Jesus.  A follower of Jesus believes in God and heaven and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.  These were once Canadian values.  Kellie Leitch is trying to get agreement on what is Canadian because Justin Trudeau hating Christians and Catholics and English and most things Canadians has started another Muslim jihad with his encouragement of Bill M-103.  Islamaphobia is to be outlawed by the Christophobe Justin Trudeau.

What will President Trump do.  I don’t think WWIII but maybe it’s about ratings.  As we’re gathering for the ascension of Jesus we may be all taken back to the passover.  I expect buying Hyssop would be in order.  I will trust in the blood of the lamb rather than going around to butcher shops looking for lamb.  Hyssop will have to do.  

Jesus Christ means literally “God within, god will come again.”  So all my life I’ve played hide and seek with God.  They dark times have only been when I was hiding and forgot I was hiding and thought the game was over and no one had come to find me.  All I had to do then was come out and play.  Just like I come when Mamma calls for supper.  Turning and twisting and circling and rising on eagles wings.  

Easter Musings

The crucifixion of Christ God is upon us.  His death and resurrection miracles are reenacted annually. The message of love is everywhere this Holy Week.  God who taught us “love your enemy” died for our error and humanity.  God who incarnated in his son Jesus taught we are all children of God each and everyone of us capable of miracle.  Come and Follow Me, he said.  “I will make you fishers of men”.  For thousands of years God caught our imagination.  Distracting us from war and killing and the refinements of torture and the salience of sex.
“Come follow me.”  “Repent!”
This world is the surface of things.  We are shallow thinkers who fail to follow the greatest minds of our day, the Max Planck’s and Einsteins. They too taught us to look beneath the surface of things.  Heaven is within.  Our very ideas and presence individually and collectively define reality.  The Uncertainty Principle, String Theory, and Shroediger’s Cat all bring us back to a man dying on a cross who says,
“Forgive them for they know not what they do?"
“Father, why has thou forsaken me?"
“It is not I that turned away.” he says.
I am afraid.  I am so afraid.  I know anxiety is a measure of my distance from God.  I pray.  I meditate. I work and I do the next right thing.  I am forever standing as David before Goliath. But the nightmare recurs over and over again. I’m am shitting and pissing myself because I’ve forgotten my sling.  Somehow I know in the story I conquer the beast. Always in the end I’m the one who awakes to the light. In the nightmare I’m failing again and again, the Sisyphus of Kierkegaard Suffering Unto the End, caught in the existential angst of the Scream.  Hollow Men.  The Hollow Man.
I kneel before you accepting the transformation of wine into blood into god stuff.  There are no illusions.  It is real.  I joined the collective insanity preferable to the individual insanity of the one alone among the stupid people.  I too am pinned to a cross like a trophy in a child’s insect collection.  I sometimes imagine I hear Herod laugh.  In the Collective Unconscious of Carl Jung I become all those who are there at the drama of death. I’m the grieving mother, the crying lover and the callous hardened soldiers and the superior church and political leaders. I’m all of these august members killing God to keep the love out of the darkness we create to frighten children and hold onto our rank stupidity.  The reformer is the enemy of anyone who would challenge the status quo. As above, so below. As within, so without.
I am a fat cat  I despise  ready to eat the mouse or fight whatever and whoever would take my spot in the sun.  I am indifferent. This addiction to the passing fashion and past play of the false promise of escape or enlightenment is my undoing. I am here till the end, servant to the King.  Only the good die young. Each passing moment I am more and more aware of how deep evil is and how thoroughly it has eroded my faith.   I no longer fly in dreams, soaring as Jonathan Seagull, laughing.  I am heavy with sorrow. I’m waited down with  failure upon failure.  I have lost my way in the Maze and think only of the Minotaur.   I am not the resurrected Lazarus.  I am the forgotten..
It was only yesterday you died for my sins yet I’ve distanced you, placed you back in history somewhere after a Big Bang. I’ve made you a story and a myth.  I’ve reduced you to what I can grasp. I’ve reduced to infinite and sacred to bite size portions. I’ve cannibalized creation unable to open myself fully to the miracle that is you.   I’ve ignored the constant tapping on the door of you wanting to come in.  I have turned from the light.  I have crucified my Lord.  I have hated my fellow man. I have ignored the ten commandments. I’ve forgotten the Beatitudes. I have moped in self pity and focussed on myself. I have studied my naval and beheaded John the Baptist.  All the while my friends have said to me, “Get down off the cross, we can use the wood.”  I am not much but I am all I think of.
The paranoid always externalizes blame. The shame is always with the other.  So shame on you.
I want you God. I want you more than all creation. I want the relationship with my Lord that you had with yours.  The Father and Son are one.  I would be One in humility.  A servant king as you.
This weekend we celebrate with pomp and pageantry. The miracle of spring is upon us.  The terrible winter of darkness and sickness is past.  Tulips are exploding from the earth in psychedelic colours.  Blue skies are replacing the endless grey.  Snow is melting and warmth is replacing the cold.  There is again the miracle of hope. And we take all this for granted.
Soon we shall  shout. Altogether now! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed.  I cannot wait God.  Each year I feel as if I am crawling to this finish line, more and more wrecked.  I am slithering really, snaking into the home plate.  The song Desperado comes to mind.  Really Lord I’ve been out riding fences for too long. I’ve lost my humanity in the rat race. I’ve let bits of importance fall from me in the struggle to stay up right in the hurricane.  I’ve have stayed to long in the valley  of corruption and greed.  I now wait for you to prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.  My cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life.
Still I’ve warred with myself. I’ve not loved myself. I’ve not forgiven others and I’ve not forgiven myself. I’ve held onto all that fear and rage. I’ve been little minded, smug and shallow. I’ve been all the failings of man.  I’ve lost hope and faith and believed that pains would never end. I’ve been thankless and lacking in gratitude waking to blame others for my own refusal to believe.  I’ve let the end down and failed to do my best every minute of every day. I’ve been selfish and unkind and unclean.  I’ve barely made it to Easter this year Lord. I’ve hardly survived this winter.
But now I’m struggling to stand up right again. I want to greet you, standing.  I want to reach up and touch your finger.  I want to feel that moment when sparks fly both ways. I want to know you Lord. I really want to know you.
I love you Jesus, Son of God.  I am your follower, such as there is. Take me in all my brokeness and unworthiness.  I am one of those who killed God out of fear when God came to visit his creation.  I carry all of those who have gone before me in my DNA and in my mind.  I too am Son of Man, Son of God.  I remember Peter denying you. I remember Judas betraying you.  I am those.  But please God know me first as he who loved you.  Teach me to pray.  Help me. Guide me.
These days and nights of Holy Week I want to walk with you.  This Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and all the days of the year I want to  remember your sacrifice. I want to hear you saying,
“Forgive them for they know not what they do?”  “Love them.”  Love your neighbour as yourself.  But first of all, Love God.
Then I want to hear the horns and sing out with all the earth, “Christ has Risen!  Christ has Risen! Christ has Risen!"

Veiled Crosses, St.James Anglican, and Motorcycling to Squamish and Gilbert

Gilbert and I made it to St. James Anglican Church today for the sermon by Father Mark Greenaway-Robbins.  His sermon was of course on Lent and Holy Week.  The crosses and images in the church were veiled in purple. This represented the fasting from ‘sacred depictions’.
Everyone is invited to church during Holy Week. Of course everyone is invited to church every week but especially during Holy Week. Our new Right Reverend Melissa Skelton, Bishop, Anglican Diocese of New Westminister will be the Homilist Palm Sunday April 13. High Mass with the blessing of the palms and neighbourhood process is at 10:30 am
Fr. Mark Greenaway-Robbins inspired  by Thomas Traherne, First Century stated, On the Cross of Christ, “The Cross is the abyss of wonders, the centre of desires, in the school of virtues, the house of wisdom, the throne of love, the theatre of joys and the place of sorrows; It is the root of happiness , and the gate of Heaven.”
 Maundy Thursday, April 17 at 6:30 pm Solem Mass of the Institutions of the Blessed Sacrament, followed by an all night Watch before the Altar of Repose. (People had begun to sign up in groups of three to do hourly vigils to ensure all night presence and prayer.)
Good Friday is April 18 with stations of the cross at 10 am for children, 2 pm Stations of the Cross, 3:00 pm Solemn Liturgy of Good Friday, Homily “the throne of love” and 5 pm Confessions.
Holy Saturday is April 19 with 9pm Great Mass of Easter with the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.
Easter Day is April 20 with 8:30 am Low Mass of Resurrection, 10:30 am High Mass of the Resurrection with Procession and Blessing of the Easter Garden, Homily “the place of sorrows: the root of happiness, and the gate of Heaven”. 5 pm Evenson and Benediction in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel

 Gilbert and I had ridden to the mass on Harley.
After the mass we roared off with the Doobie Brothers, the only cd I had with me, loudly playing on the stereo.  We rode to the boat to confirm all was well.   Gilbert barrelled up and down the dock gleeful running full tilt boogie.
Now annually we drive up the curvy road to Horseshoe Bay to get back into the hang of highway motorcycling  Today, we drove all the way to Squamish.  It was a spectacular day of grand vista. The clouds were hanging at the level of the snow on the mountain tops, The ocean beside the Sea to Sky highway was a particularly beautiful.  Gilbert and I loved the ride.
We stopped at Starbucks along with a dozen other bikers all of us getting a jump on this great destination for one of the prime rides of the province.  I had a Mocha and Gilbert ate a little Caesar I’d thought to pack just for such an occasion.
Thank you Jesus for good rides and such surroundings of awesome splendour.