A Lakeside Death

"All Christian preachers have to face this issue. Either we preach that human beings are rebels against God, under his just judgment and (if left to themselves) lost, and that Christ crucified who bore their sin and curse is the only available Saviour. Or we emphasize human potential and human ability, with Christ brought in only to boost them, and with no necessity for the cross except to exhibit God’s love and so inspire us to greater endeavour. The former is the way to be faithful, the latter the way to be popular. It is not possible to be faithful and popular simultaneously."

John R.W. Stott, "The Cross of Christ"

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Dear Alex,

You’ve crossed the line yesterday in your “No Good Friday” letter to me, most offensively, least pretentiously. The vulgarity of 3 minutes on pedestrian porn, magnified in exponential efficiency, neatly describes the uptick of my heart for Thai lunch, grease, excess. I can’t get enough of popular filth, the jargons among addicts in common circle.

The truth is I had 3 hours of idle break in mid-work week. Not 3 of my 180 minutes were spent for anyone other than self. I lounged as Babylonian in my purchased corner of an honest dining enterprise, loosened my waist belt, unzipped purse and mouth to salivate through exotic escapes in orange crispy chicken, drunken silk noodles and a dragon brew of dark coffee drowning in coconut cream.

I surprise myself with how much I could eat on public round table, my globe in gluttony, when no one is looking. I could gobble past 10,000 taste buds and 14,000 heart beats to stay true to my craving and craze on Moon-day, Sunday or not-so Good Friday. I don’t need diploma or imagination to teach you the truth about my nature.

The night following my 3-hour lunch was uneventful. Nothing special to brag about. No show to tell behind closed toilet door for the fourth return. We don’t need to air our dirty laundry or detail my diarrhea. My feasting in clouds turned later to a night of hovering with cramps a few feet above underground sewage, the yo-yo of a rebel from potential to purging, ability to obscenity.

To the lake after work I followed my family yesterday evening. My daughter had prepared for me a pale of brushes and watercolor palettes to paint on canvas, a picnic of pigments to explore with Spring blossoms. I ended up napping in car while she burst in form and fun on her sketch pad by an old tree trunk for over an hour. She finally woke me up with a phone text: Are you coming?

To come to who and what, I’ve been asking myself since then from lake through yesterday’s Good Friday online worship with our Downtown East Side neighbors. Was it sufficiently vulgar for me to have missed the many lakes and fields I came to but neither touched nor tasted? How much more obscenity can we endure before we come to the shore to listen to the most offending, least popular Message of the Cross, the crossroad where our lives, pretty in punk as they may be, cross borders to truly start living?

Yours,
Kate