Facebook, Beauty, and Good Friday

I don’t find myself on Facebook much these days; when I am on, I love the memories that pop up on my feed here and there. You know the ones, 3 years ago today you were here…7 years ago today you posted this, etc. 

Last Friday, my Facebook memory was from 5 years ago in Venice, Italy. More specifically, it was a video that I had posted inside St. Mark’s Basilica during the Good Friday Celebration of the Lord’s Passion. After not sleeping last night, here are a few things that kept me up all night about the video and the significance of this day, this Good Friday 2021.

What strikes me first about the video is the music, a rendition of “Agnus Dei” (Latin for Lamb of God) by the St. Mark’s Choir. It was absolutely stunning to sit there and listen to what seemed to be angelic voices from above. You may miss in the video that the choir was up on the balcony that surrounded both the church’s altar and nave. As a result, they had split the choir into four different areas. To my back right were women voices countered by men’s voices to my front left. While another set of men’s voices were to my front right, the second set of women’s voices were heard to my back left. Together, the harmony of all four areas rained down on your ears, paralyzing your thoughts and senses. It was one of those moments that beauty forced time to stop, leaving you to first wrestle with, then find tremendous peace in a truth that transcends understanding and time.

Thinking of the beautiful music that night brings me to the idea of the power of beauty. It captivates us. It arrests us. It leaves us at peace yet wanting more. Think of a radiant sunset. We pause and calmly take it in, yet we don’t want it to end, and we desire more. This causes us to take the next step and participate more fully. We want to watch more, listen to beautiful music more, read beautiful texts more, or begin taking pictures of the beauty that we see. Once we actively participate, it moves us to a more profound truth and understanding of the beauty itself.

Think now of a beautiful relationship. When we find someone attractive both physically and, more importantly, their inner beauty, we want to participate in more activities with this person. Finally, after spending time with them, we want to know everything about the person, their childhood, families, their good times and bad. Thus, we move from the beautiful to the good to a deeper understanding of objective truth, allowing the rhythm of life to captivate our senses and, finally, our souls.

When we find ourselves in this kind of rhythm, those moments that make time stop, we find ourselves in the moments that some call “liminal space.” These are the times that take us to the thresholds of reality, inviting us into the sacred. In other words, times when the past, present, and future seem to be all happening at once. For example, watching a sunset, or Les Miserables, or spending time with a loved one, or sitting in St. Mark’s Basilica listening to “Agnus Dei.” Time is lost. 

It is the space when we realize that we are part of a beautiful Theodrama while at the same time knowing we have such a small part.  Therefore, we need not take ourselves so seriously with our guilt and shame. All of which brings me to Good Friday.

As we know, Good Friday was the day that Jesus was crucified and died on the cross. Just a few days before, He had told his disciples that He will bring all things and everyone to Himself when He was raised up (on the cross). Furthermore, His death that we celebrate today becomes in union with His Resurrection on Easter Sunday, marrying both events as one. In other words, the past, the present, and the future become one act in that one moment. More so, both the darkness, the light…the old, the new…violence, peace…sin, mercy…hatred, Love…everyone, and everything become a part of this “liminal space.” Thrusting everything and everyone into a sacred and connected place.

The Good Friday over 2000 years ago outside Jerusalem is the same as it was 5 years ago in Venice and is the same today in 2021 in Phoenixville, PA. Not only that, for every time we choose forgiveness over hatred, anger, and fear, we experience this Good Friday/Easter Sunday moment in real-time. We share “earth as it is in heaven” in our lives.

One final thought. (Yes, these thoughts were racing through my head at 3 am.) Think once again of that beautiful relationship. Some say a relationship starts when our shadow selves, our most vulnerable parts, become exposed to the other and are welcomed and loved. I thought of this as I read the reflection below this morning. I hope that you find it helpful today as much as I did.

Happy Easter.  

Now time for a nap.

[Jesus] went to death as a victim. . . .  And the reason that this is important is that it catches us at our worst, as it were. The space of the victim is the kind of place none of us at all ever wants to occupy, and if we find ourselves occupying it, it is kicking and screaming. More to the point, we spend a great deal of time pointing fingers and making sure that other people get to occupy that space, not us. 

Now by Jesus going into, and occupying that space [of the victim], deliberately, without any attraction to it, he is not only proving that we needn’t be afraid of death, but also we needn’t be afraid of shame, disgrace, or of the fact that we have treated others to shame and disgrace. It is as if he were saying “Yes, you did this to me, as you do it to each other, and here I am undergoing this, occupying the space of it happening, but I’m doing so without being embittered or resentful. In fact, I was keen to occupy this space so as to try to get across to you that I am not only utterly alive, but that I am utterly loving. There is nothing you can do, no amount of evil that you can do to each other, that will be able to stop my loving you, nothing you can do to separate yourselves from me. The moment you perceive me, just here, on the cross, occupying this space for you and detoxifying it, the moment you perceive that, then you know that I am determined to show you that I love you, and am in your midst as your forgiving victim. This is how I prove my love to you: by taking you at your very lowest and worst point and saying “Yes, you do this to me, but I’m not concerned about that, let’s see whether we can’t learn a new way of being together.”

-James Alison