Romford has the third largest town shopping centre in the UK - I am led to believe.
There are three major Malls - and also a traditional open market.
Alongside that open market is our Church - 'St Edward's in the Market Place'.
Very Old.
Spire - the lot.
That is the venue for Joan and me on Good Friday.
The market Place and the whole town was packed with shoppers. The market traders shouting out their special offers to the passing throng. Children held by the hand. Older humans pushing four wheeled trolleys which give support. Some counting their change to see if they have enough.
And we walked through and into a reflective small group of humans in a large church - to remember the dying .....
After a funeral I don't feel like speaking to anyone. I won't - if I can help it.
Good Friday is like a Funeral for me.
The best service of the year is the 3 hour service - 12 - 3pm.
It is a series of meditations. Each with a ten minute reflection on the cross followed by music and then a prayer. Each conducted by a different Minister.
You know - can you remember being at a funeral and becoming distressed because you see others distressed?
Do you sometimes feel a welling of emotion that seems to burst upwards into the chest and seems to fill the head with emotions uncontrollable?
Do you sometimes have a deep weep?
Emotions that just sob inside?
Do you sometimes have tears beneath the surface and they seem to stop at the eyes - and they become full and glazed?
"I am thirsty" ......... as a little child would say - dependent on parents.
Jesus said this from the Cross.
Expressing a feeling.
He could have expressed lots of feelings like
"this pain is unbearable"
"I feel lonely" "
"I feel hurt because my friends left me and I need friends right now".
Jesus - so fully human.
Yet God himself - yet so fully human and therefore feeling it all as we would.
I have thirsty ears.
I have thirsty emotions as I kneel there - sit there - stand there.
Funny how kneeling for some time is a struggle.
So much for personal pain from me.
The faint noises from the market penetrate the silence in Church.
A market shopper shuffles into church and heads for the front and lights a candle.
The noise of the coins dropping touch my feelings too.
Maybe these are the mites of a widow?
Jesus says
"It is finished".
It is accomplished .............. job done -
I have fulfilled my life mission.
My my goes to that very issue.
Will I ever reach my mission in life.
I must revisit and ask that question of myself.
"We proclaim Christ Crucified"
What's that all about?
We proclaim that the person who we base our life on ......... who we follow in terms of example, in terms of principle .............. we shout about this?
About him being executed?
A good life ending with failure .......
This is strange -
so upside down -
such a position of extreme poverty -
deprivation ...........
The funeral is over ................. it is the best service of the year - so uncomfortable - so gut retching - so reaching into my soul - so helpless the feelings - so painful to remember my intimate close friend dying in such a way .........
"It costs so much to be a full human being .......... "
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