This week I was in Bali (to be accurate a hotel in Bali) where Holi, the Hindu festival was celebrated. Known as Phagwah in Trinidad, Holi, is a celebration of the beginning of spring. It is a time of enjoying spring’s abundant colors and saying farewell to winter.
Today in Bangkok, it is another busy, traffic and food-filled day in public spaces. Except that it is also Good Friday. Now I did not grow up in a religious household though my mother is a good and observing Catholic. Not quite poto legliz (pillar of the church) as they would say in Dominica. But observant. This is one of her big regrets, not insisting on a religious upbringing for her children in the face of my father’s other points of communist-influenced view.
I do not feel that I missed out. But then, how would I know? In all the years of episodic church attendance through school outings, weddings, funerals and sundry services for this, that or another day, the religious experiences signified for me moments of community connection. Anthropologically important as solidarity, but not transcendental.
So why am I thinking about this today? Because I am missing the culture of Good Friday. In the Caribbean on this day, a silence descends. Reverence is in the air. The usual things cannot be done. We must stay at home, reflect on the sacrifice, the pain, the betrayal, forgiveness as a value and look forward to redemption. Is there any more plaintive phrase in the Bible than “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?’
My mother who was generally a relaxed parent, insisted on inertia. No, not a day for the beach or anything else. Sad things happened on Good Friday if you went looking for fun. Drowning was almost inevitable. Jesus Christ was crucified on this day, for crying out loud. After all!
Did she really believe this? I have no idea. But her recourse to the unknowable yet menacing other world was always a trump card in her parenting deck. Anticipated, unbearable mother grief etched on her face– “I just have a bad feeling”. I suppose it was her way of asserting her own sense of the solemnity of the day. Not a day to be blithe, but a day for restraint.
But then again, you have to love the Trinidadians, injecting the sacred with the absurd in their tradition of the Good Friday bobolee. And even writing it, I want to burst out in laughter. The bobolee is an effigy of Judas Iscariot, like a scarecrow. It is placed in a community space on Good Friday for anyone to beat with sticks and the like. The Good Friday bobolee has come to symbolize anything that is unpopular, usually the politicians. Talk about frustration release.
But that Trinidadian theatre aside, today, I feel disconnected from the Good Friday quiet. And truly, quiet must be the scarcest commodity in Bangkok.
Religion is a shared cultural experience, whether or not you believe in higher, omniscient powers.
I might have to go looking for a church this weekend. Well….
Hi Roberta
Haven’t been on your blog for sometime so your Good Friday piece was a nice “welcome back”. I remember all the dire warnings growing up in Dca, only for the older siblings though who may have dared to voice any talk about going to the river, or doing anything that remotely smacked of fun. For us younger ones it never entered our heads to even want to go. Not done.
So in my own house for my kids it was the same…I didn’t necessarily consider whether I believed or not…it was just understood and not done like all traditions I guess.
And so Stations of the Cross on Good Friday (no Mass on that day) was and still is for me and kids a must….part of tradition I suppose. But a nice and good-feeling tradition. As is making sure you went to Cheapside or Oistins to get fish ….no meat on Good Friday. I take the grand kids to the fish market and that’s another tradition.
This year instead of attending the usual Stations of the Cross at St Patricks I went to St Dominic’s where it was followed by a beautiful Passion play ( two of the grands took part).
So yes Roberta I hope you found a church and hope you felt good. What more can one ask?
PS pics of Bangkok?
LikeLike
You capture Good Friday so well! My mother, born Methodist, joined the Catholic Church when she married my father and ended up poto leglize (haven’t heard that expression in a long time). I love the symbolism (the death and transfiguration of Springtime!) and drama of the whole season – starting with Palm Sunday.
These days my alienation from the CC keeps me away from the church, but not from the symbolism so I have my own rituals. Good Friday means hot cross buns, Bach’s St.Matthews Passion and lots of reflection… Interestingly, I also went to the beach – to walk (not Brown’s beach Rosina, too many people – I tried to find the quietest beach). Today, I again started by walking on the beach and put on Handel’s Massiah. Spent most of the day sending emails and phone calls to wish friends and family Happy Easter!
These memories keep us close.
Happy Easter/Springtime Roberta!
LikeLike
Peggy, thinking abot your comment about distance from the CC, here is an article from teh Guardina which you will find interesting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2013/mar/29/no-longer-faith-atheist
i really miss the early mornings on Brown’s beach.
LikeLike
Like you, my home was not a religious one, but my grandmother was, and she never missed Good Friday service. She also never failed to remind of us all that can go wrong if we did not stay quietly at home on Good Friday.
I practice my catholic faith, however I never attend Good Friday service because it is always hot and crowded. Nonetheless, I do nothing on Good Friday – still afraid of granny’s predictions I guess.
LikeLike
I like that omnibus warning from your Grandmother
LikeLike
Hi Roberta love, Such a nice commentary that made feel very much ‘at home’ both here in South Florida where there is a bit of the Sacred you describe ( Church was packed more than usual on Good Friday) and back home where the almost universal cultural attitude you write about prevails throughout the region. In my house growing up, it was “Beach today, you crazy or what? Go and keep yourself quiet and get ready for the “3 hour srevice”.
You expressed it so very well, and I venture to say in my role as your A. Doreen, that I hope you find a beautiful Church in Bankok on Easter Sunday, and feel like you are at home anywhere in our beautiful Caribbean.
Much love, A. Doreen
LikeLike
I did find a church on Easter morning. An anglican church close to where i live. Was a mixture of the familiar and the sociological different.
LikeLike
I did not attend church but gave some moments to reflection on the last few days in my country theatrical dynamic society .I alsopondered on the country wide electricity black out from early Friday morning which was seen by some that things not right at home. Probably some in control wanted to make sure of the still atmosphere associated with Good Friday religious dogma.
LikeLike
Oh how I love good fridays!!! Growing up as a boy we looked forward to this day as we (other boys in the neighborhood) spent most of the day on the beach. Because most folks deserted the beach on Good Friday it was sparsely populated and provided young boys with the ideal environment to kick around a football on the sand without the usual fear of disturbing other beach users, not that we cared that much. The water, for some divine reason, was always calm. Unfortunately my kids are not allowed to enjoy that past-time as they are required to go to church. I don’t know how much longer they will be persuaded to forgo the delights of a beach on a sunny Friday, for church, as their protests grows louder each year. When they are allowed to join me they will invariably discover that hearing your own laughter and screams on a beach is possible, and only on a day like Good Friday is it possible. Off to the beach. Happy holidays everybody!!!
LikeLike
You describe the silence so well. This Good Friday morning was eerily silent in Bridgetown. Thanks for reminding us about the Good Friday bobolee. What an amazing tradition. Our sacred cultural traditions and their meaning are being forgotten. Even the religious foundations of Carnival (Carne Vale)with the intent of the celebrating the flesh, our human form, followed by the honouring and celebration of the Spirit for 40days seem to be lost on our society. I sat through a presentation last week at a conference, in which carnival was blamed for the gender based violence in Trinidad and Tobago by an official Trinidad envoy. The facts in no way support that claim. I was concerned that an official of T and T speaking to an international audience would be unaware of the religious/cultural significance and choose to disregard the creativity, social bonding including the drop in crime, health benefits (reduction in stress) and economic strengths of carnival. We cannot deny that some people take the festival to desecrate rather than honour the flesh, however to throw out the baby with the bathwater seemed to be unfortunate and potentially divisive. Thanks for reminding us of our rich cultural heritage and its expressions. I am looking forward to Easter and the celebration of the Ascension.
LikeLike
Rosona, i saw that headline about soca and criminals. Have to read the report before I reply.Are you going to respond?
LikeLike
I was grateful to wake up to your post, Roberta. So many vague and familiar feelings, put into solid words.
I’d been channeling your mother, saying No to Elyse’s request to go boating to Bird Island with friends today, not just because of the holy day, but also because of the generalized bad feeling that to go “looking for fun” today – especially boating of all things – could lead to an ominously bad outcome (superstition prevents me from saying what could happen).
In the end, your father’s approach won the day thanks to her well argued positions and irrefutable points. I dropped her off at Shell Beach, where boats make the run over to Bird, and called over her friend for the lecture on safety and caution today in particular. I acknowledged my superstition, but couldn’t help myself. To guess at the question of if your mother really believed in the bad things that would happen, I say: yes, kind of. In fact, just yes. A feeling in your gut – however it gets there – is stronger than a logically-arrived-at belief.
Driving off, a friend who’s an avid boater and fisherman asked me why I wasn’t joining them. “Good Friday,” I said. He was very reassuring: “No, this is okay,” he said, clinking the ice in his drink and immediately understanding. “That’s only for real ocean kind of thing, deep sea fishing and so. This little five-minute ride over to Bird Island don’t count.” I figured a fisherman like him would know and felt much better after that.
LikeLike
Hi Roberta,
I started a reply earlier and it disappeared before i finished so this is a second attempt. It was good to hear from you on this very special day in the calendar of the Christian church. I appreciated your comments about your childhood experiences. Good Friday has always been a solemn day in Bdos, regardless of religious belief or understanding. The general ‘LOOK’ of the day is one of quietness and solitude. I am not going to church today because I am recovering from a Flu bug and do not wish to pass it on to others. So it will be a quiet day for me as i listen to the offerings of Good Friday Hymns from VOB92.9. Love, Auntie June
LikeLike
And hence the expression “I beat him like a Good Friday bobolee”.
LikeLike
I am going to church tomorrow with my daughter. Post a picture of your churching in Bangkok
LikeLike