Another car post, driving to a birthday dinner, before Pascha. We missed easter last year because nobody told us it was celebrated at 11:30 pm, I mean, how would we have guessed? Raised secular as we were. This year though, we know. People really talk it up an awful lot. It sounds like quite a show. I’m not totally sure what to expect given that. But hey, we’ll see.

The past few days of Holy Week have been pretty gorgeous in and of themselves. Good Friday in particular, and the lamentation for Judas in particular. The liturgy isn’t particularly forgiving of that man, naturally, but I feel quite badly for him. I like to think he repented in those last moments, but I’m not even sure what that means, in the end.

There’s a prevailing thought across Orthodoxy, it might extend past it, that we ought to think of ourselves not just as a sinner, but the sinner. That’s how the Jesus Prayer is translated in Russian: The Sinner. It is our direct action that put Jesus on the cross, it was our action that begot the passion. Nobody else, but me directly. The times I was short with people, my lack of compassion, my lust and greed and laziness, these all drove nails.

It’s likely right.