Good Friday 2023

Here in Jordan, all the churches in the Christian community follow the Orthodox calendar for Easter, so today is Good Friday 2023. Some in the West might be surprised to learn that there are two different methods (at least) for determining the date for Easter. Here in Jordan, it was decided early on (for the sake of unity and simplifying a religious calendar that also contains all of the Islamic holidays) that the Christian community would observe Western Christmas and Eastern (Orthodox) Easter. That system has seemed to work for decades.

During this particular Lenten season, I have spent a lot of time contemplating the events of the Passion Week. I compared the different gospel accounts, attempted to make a integrated timeline (which is clearly a contemporary Western past-time. Each of the gospels stands on its own and any attempt at harmonizing, IMO, is a symptom of our contemporary obsession with time and putting things in chronological order). I also looked at a lot of artwork depicting the events of the “last week” of the earthly existence of Jesus. “Last week” in quotes, because, in reality, Jesus did have several more weeks on earth after he was resurrected and before he ascended bodily into heaven.

Looking at Biblical artwork inevitably brings me to the collection of James Tissot (1836-1902), the French painter, who, despite being a mentor to impressionist Edgar Degas, was firmly planted in the era of realism. This comes out in his detailed depiction of people, their clothing, and immediate surroundings in much of his work. His early work often seems to depict the relaxed high-life of French bourgeois society in the mid-1800s. Lovely people dressed in lovely clothes ensconced in lovely locations. The attention to detail he gave to clothing in particular is often attributed to the fact that his parents were involved in the textile and fashion industry. Despite his father’s wish that Tissot would take up the family business, James followed his creative passions and delved into the 19th-Century art scene.

Holyday (The Picnic), James Tissot c. 1876

At this point, you might be wondering if we are veering a bit off-topic, but I assure you we are not. Following the death of his muse and companion Kathleen Newton, James experienced a renewal of his perhaps latent Christian faith, which he had inherited from his Roman Catholic mother. His focus turned from fashion and French bourgeois society to depicting the life of Jesus. This later chapter in Tissot’s career was fueled by three expeditions to the Middle East. For anyone who has lived here, or even just visited briefly, it is obvious the artist had spent time in these lands. He captures the terrain, the architecture, the fashion, and especially the faces and emotions of the Middle East in his evocative depictions of the Biblical narrative.

There are hundreds of paintings in Tissot’s oeuvre (a term he may have eschewed as a verified anglophile), all of which are worth seeing. For today’s post, I have selected a handful that capture the grief-stricken moments as Jesus is lowered from the cross, prepared for burial and laid to rest. Although not described in great detail in the Bible, it was meaningful for me during this Lenten season to contemplate, through Tissot’s minds-eye, the pain and sorrow of those moments.

Yes, Easter is coming … but sometimes we move on too quickly from that Friday, which when first experienced, could not have been described even remotely as “good.”

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For a more complete collection of Tissot’s Passion Week / Holy Week painting, check the following links:

https://www.joyfulheart.com/holy-week/

https://www.dappledthings.org/deep-down-things/19071/holy-week-illustrated-by-james-tissot-palm-sunday

2012 Annual Blog Review

Happy New Year!  And welcome 2013!

This is my annual end-of-the-year/beginning-of-the-year review post.  I don’t really expect anyone else to find it interesting.  In the past I crunched a lot of numbers manually from the wordpress stats page on my dashboard.  This year, wordpress has made a very nice review page.  Click on the picture above or the link below.  Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 24,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 6 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Of course, I still had to crunch the numbers.  It’s amazing to me that with only 19 posts written in 2012 that the blog still received 24,000 views.  I’m hoping to be a bit more regular in my posting in 2013.  Of course that’s what I hoped last year.  If you follow the blog, you know that in April of 2012 I tried the A-to-Z blog challenge.  I fizzled out somewhere around P and didn’t write again until December. So much for the discipline of writing everyday improving my blog.

So, without further ado, here is the list of the top 10-posts viewed in 2012.

1	Scary Rooms	2,694
2	The Bake House – Jabal Amman Restaurant Review	2,046
3	Amman turns . . . 100?	1,622
4	Jordan A to Z: M is for … Mansaf or Msakhan!	1,219
5	Jordan A to Z: K is for … Kings!	1,047
6	Pope Benedict visiting Jordan	958
7	Ramadan Breakfast at Hashem’s in Amman, Jordan	614
8	My thoughts on Ted Williams, homelessness and the value of fame in America	528
9	Eye Exams, Customer Service, and Paris Hilton	475
10	Christmas Lights and Nativity Scene near Amman Jordan (Fuheis)	428

Thanks to all of you who have been reading!

I am constantly surprised by the country stats from the blog.  WordPress recorded visitors from 134 countries last year.  That’s 65% of the nations in the world!  I broke down the top 25 countries by # of visits last year.

Rank	Country	Views
1	Jordan	7,116
2	United States	5,117
3	United Kingdom	1,220
4	Poland	748
5	Canada	679
6	Switzerland	453
7	United Arab Emirates	377
8	Australia	347
9	Germany	277
10	India	233
11	Netherlands	219
12	Saudi Arabia	213
13	Turkey	195
14	Philippines	190
15	France	158
16	Brazil	125
17	Egypt	119
18	Indonesia	117
19	Spain	113
20	Italy	107
21	Israel	102
22	Malaysia	102
23	Romania	100
24	Sweden	98
25	Pakistan	93

So thanks to everyone from around the globe for stopping by. My goal for 2013 is to generate more discussion on the blog … despite a high number of views, there are still very few comments.  It would be great to see some international dialogue taking place in this kind of forum.   Time will tell.  And speaking of time … here’s to a good 2013!

 

10 Thoughts on Dealing with Death and Grief

I couldn’t sleep last night.  A lot of things were rambling around in my head. Last week was a long one for me.  There was a lot to do at work and in the midst of it a young colleague in our extended network passed away unexpectedly of a brain aneurism.  And then the news of the massacre of innocents at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

So in the middle of the night some of my mental ramblings coalesced into 10 thoughts on dealing with death and grief.  I am by no means an expert on such things, but it was helpful for me to jot these things down.  Hopefully, they are helpful for you as well.

It should be noted that I write from a Christian perspective, and wrote these thoughts down with that particular community in mind.  However, I hope people of any religious (or non-religious) background will feel free to read and comment.

1.       Grief and mourning are natural responses to death.  These are powerful forces that often result in emotional (and sometimes physical) pain as well as great sadness and crying for some people.  This is normal and to be expected.

2.       Everyone grieves in different ways.  Some express their emotions intensely and at the beginning, others hold everything deeply and only let it all out gradually over a long time … and some, not at all.  It is easy to become judgmental of people who don’t grieve in the same way we do.  We may think they are too emotional or perhaps too uncaring.  Why are they crying so much?  Why don’t they cry at all?  How can they laugh at a time like this?  As a community we must remember to pray for each other and not judge.

3.       Everyone grieves in different ways.  Yes, I am stating this again.  It is so important.  Some people cry and mourn in response to death.  Others laugh and celebrate the good things that were.  Neither is the wrong way, nor the best way to grieve.  Culture and upbringing often dictate our response to death.  As believers we should show mutual respect and love to those who deal with death differently than we do.

4.       Grief is a long and winding path, and not a superhighway.  Some would prefer that grief were a set of orderly directions to be followed for a set amount of time and then cleanly exited from by a convenient off-ramp.  Grief is not like that.  It is more like a mountain path that curves back and forth and dips and climbs.  The journey lasts for quite some time and there are often unexpected twists and turns.

5.       When comforting someone it is better to listen than talk.  Most of us don’t really know what to say to comfort someone who is grieving.  Usually there is no need to say much.  It is often best to just be present; put an arm around someone, hold their hand and just be together.  There might be a time for talking later and when that comes it is best to be a good listener.

6.       There is no need to defend God.  God can handle himself.  He doesn’t need anyone to come to his defense or speculate about his will.  God doesn’t like death anymore than we do and is greatly opposed to it.  Romans 8, I Corinthians 15, and Hebrews 2 make this clear.

7.       But isn’t God in control of everything?  Yes.  And when it comes to death it is a tool that he sometimes uses. When an old woman suffering from a variety of diseases dies in her sleep, death seems like a grace from God.  But when children are shot or a young man is robbed of life unexpectedly, there seems to be something devilish at work rather than divine.  Hebrews 2:14 tells us that the devil holds the power of death … and he often uses it.  Don’t blame God for the devil’s work.

8.       It is ok to ask why.  God is not afraid of your questions.  If you are asking “Why?” in your heart, God already knows this.  Don’t try to hide your anger and pain from God.  Ask Him the hard questions.  Let Him sit with you in your grief and pain.

9.       God has not forsaken us in moments of great loss and pain.  It is the filter of our human emotions and reasoning that often make it seem to us that God has abandoned us during times of grief.  The intensity of what we are thinking or feeling can block out both the people around us and the fact that God is right there with us.  We must cling to faith even if we don’t feel it and have faith for others who can’t stand fully on their own at this time.

10.    There is something more powerful than death.  Romans contains the cornerstone of Christian belief on death, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 8:38-39)

Jordan A to Z: P is for … Petra!

Words cannot adequately describe Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabateans.  If you are unfamiliar with the Nabateans, they were an Arab tribe descended from Ishmael’s eldest son Nebaioth.  They lived in the area that would be considered modern day southern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia.  They were merchants and artisans whose society flourished for hundreds of years using Petra as their capital and trading hub.  Eventually the Romans came on the scene, and also the z, and the Muslims.  All left their imprint on Petra before it was lost to the sands of time following a series of devastating earthquakes.

Petra was rediscovered in modern times in 1812 by Swiss Johaan Burckhardt who, after years of training, masqueraded as an Arab merchant on his way to sacrifice at Aaron’s tomb.  Along the way he discovered the ancient city of Petra.

Today Petra is Jordan’s most popular tourist destination and it is easy to see why.  It is truly breath-taking.

I should stop writing and just let the pictures do the talking.  I visited Petra 6 times this past year (with out-of-town guests) and each time I notice something new.  Here are some pics I like.  Hope you like them too.

(If a picture is worth a 1000 words – here’s to my longest blog post ever)

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