Good Friday Reflection

by Tim Frazer 

I earned my living teaching English, and I thought I would contribute to the blog by writing about John Donne’s Good Friday poem.   But while the poem enters in here, I find I got nudged in a different direction.

The title of Donne’s “Goodfriday 1613. Riding Westward” always aroused a powerful visual image of a Good Friday sky, with a rider heading into a wet, west wind, the setting sun mostly clouded over.

I never cared much for the poem itself. I never tried to teach it. Its imagery is complex. I usually quit after the first few stanzas.   But on Good Friday of 2013 I literally found myself riding westward, in this case through southern Vermont and beyond, so I could spend Easter weekend with my mother in Illinois.   Here was another darkish, Good Friday sky lowering over the Green Mountains. I remembered that it was the 400^th anniversary of Donne’s original Good Friday journey.

Remembering Jerusalem, site of the Crucifixion, Donne writes:

Hence is’t, that I am carryd towards the West/ This day, when my Soules forme bends towards the East. / There I should see a Sunne, by rising set, and by that setting endless day beget.

In Wilmington, Vermont, I saw a Catholic church open. Services were not due to start for a few hours, and while I could not stay for that, I was at least able to enter, sit alone in front of the altar, and be quiet until time to hit the road.

  

The Gospel writers’ accounts are brief as to details, but Mark tells us of the “Darkness from the sixth hour over the whole land.”     After the rising “Sunne” and “endless day,” the rest of Donne’s poem is darkened by sin, guilt, shame. It is Good Friday. Hope of Resurrection lays hidden in darkness.

My 2013 Lenten journey ended, of course, on Easter morning, this time in the same church – the same congregation at least – where my Mom had worshipped since 1940 (she will be 100 this June!)   After the service we talked about poetry, and about Resurrection. My father passed away in 1993, and Mom reminded me about the experience she encountered during his funeral. Dad suddenly appeared to her, smiling and warm, and spoke. He said “I have to go now. But don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”   That was like a bright light on yet another dark day.

Mom has led a rich life. Years ago, she lobbied her community to provide breakfasts for kids who were coming to school hungry, and ran the kitchen.   She wrote poetry. Even into her nineties, she preached a number of times in her church. Like others who live long lives, she has had to live with the loss of family members and friends.   She has had to put up with health problems and gradual loss of independence.   But she can still say when I call her, “Tim, I’m doing pretty well.”

To explain the faith that has brought Mom through this long and incredible life, I turn again to poetry – not John Donne’s this time, but Mom’s:

I always knew there was a force

That kept the planets in their course.

And gave the moon authority

To draw the tides across the sea.

And as I contemplate with awe

This absolute and holy law

I know with perfect certainty

This holy force abides in me.

 ----Barbara Frazer