Friday In Passion Week
Since yesterday marked the Feast of the Assumption, I had hoped to write a post to commemorate the day. But we had thunderstorms pushing through the area, and I thought it best to keep my laptop turned off and everything unplugged. We’ve had a few less-than-pleasant experiences in the past with lightning and decided to lay low and take no chances.
I did not know until recently that the Church used to teach that the date of The Annunciation, March 25th, was the date God began His work of creating the heavens and the earth. I do so enjoy learning these sorts of tidbits; it’s like discovering a yellowing photo of a long-dead family member one never knew and yet feeling a connection through the slick paper and beyond the years.
The strongest of the storms last night hit about 1:00 am. The thunder wasn’t the terrifying, London blitz-sort of noise that keeps one in a jumpy, unsettled state. Rather, it was the sort that sounds like distant artillery — low and continual and menacing. It wasn’t the thunder that awakened me; it was the soft wet nose of Jinx as he pushed it into my face, trying to tell me that he didn’t like the thunder, didn’t like it at all. I barely had time to raise up on one elbow when he bounded up next to me and snuggled in. The dog was trembling all over. I talked to him in a whisper so as not to awaken my wife, and stroked his ribs and his head, and he finally calmed down. We both dozed off for a bit, and then I felt him slide down onto the floor and heard him return to his bed, where he stayed until morning. We had no damage other than a few limbs down. I haven’t yet had a chance to go up into the woods and explore. We may have lost a tree or two.
Today was one of those gorgeous rare days where the very air seems to dominate the mind and heart. Seventy degrees Farenheit, a mild, chortling breeze, sky as blue as a grandchild’s eyes, high clouds like dollops of whipped cream. Green is creeping into every corner, buds and bulbs are exploding, leaves are unfurling, pushed out by the living force within the trees. When I parked under the tree at my job, I noticed the purple buds all along the branches and it reminded me of watching the last leaf on the same tree in November.
Last weekend, Mrs. Orr and I saw crowds of mostly young people buying tomato plants and squash and peppers and cucumbers, etc., eager to dig and plant and grow. Mindful of my grandmother’s yearly stern warning never to plant until after May 15th, I smiled at the shoppers’ enthusiasm but shook my head at the thought of what Jack Frost will do to their purchases between now and the end of May. In these mountains, we still have three more “winters” to endure: dogwood winter, redbud winter, and blackberry winter. It’s like paradise right now, but the meteorological crowd are already forecasting snow for this coming Thursday. It’s the sort of situation that makes one’s plans go all pear shaped.
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I was reading this morning in My Catholic Faith, the section on the apostolicity of Catholic doctrines. The selection to which I paid careful attention was on the anointing of the sick. As the book outlines this doctrine, the apostolic church notes that St. James, regarding the sick, offers James 5:14 as the principle: “Is any one among you sick? Let him bring in the presbyters of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” The application in the Catholic church reads, “One of the most ordinary duties of a Catholic Priest is to anoint the sick in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. If a man is sick among us he is careful to call in the Priest of the Church that he may anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.” And the contrast, illustrated with the Protestant churches, tells us, “No such sacrament as that of anointing the sick is practiced by any Protestant denomination, notwithstanding the Apostle’s injunction.”
My own experience as a Protestant confirms this. I know that some of the Pentecostal/charismatic churches make a regular practice of anointing, but it’s not a sacrament; it’s more of an occasional dramatic interlude in their church services. In my time in Baptist churches, I never heard the topic even discussed, much less performed. In the Presbyterian church, where I spent the majority of my Christian life, anointing the sick was taught and talked about, but I only saw it done two or three times. One instance stands out in my mind as illustrative of the Protestant vibe.
A member of our congregation, one of the other elders’ wives, was terribly ill with a chronic disease. After years of dealing with the condition, her strength and her emotional health were beginning to show fissures. Her husband approached the rest of the Session (the board of elders) and asked if we would come to their home and anoint her with oil and pray over her. We agreed and decided to come out the following Saturday.
When the day arrived, I went over to the pastor’s house so that we could drive out together. The other elders were going to meet us there. We were getting ready to leave when the pastor snapped his fingers and said, “Almost forgot the oil.” We went back inside to the kitchen, where the pastor took a square Tupperware container, about the size of a large sandwich, from the cabinet. He found a bottle of olive oil in the pantry and sloshed about a half-cup into the Tupperware and snapped on the lid. “Ok, let’s go,” he said.
And I remember thinking, “That’s it? That’s how you’re going to do this?” I had at least expected him to have a small bottle, something that looked dignified and ceremonial. I had expected preparations for the coming rite to have some sort of gravitas. But we returned to the car, where the pastor tossed the container onto the back seat, and we went off to do our duty.
At the elder’s house, we ad the elder’s wife sit in a chair with the rest of us gathered around here. We laid hands on her and took turns praying for her. Then the anointing. The pastor popped the lid off the Tupperware, dipped just the weensiest tips of his middle fingers into the oil, and placed a finger on each of her temples and said his own pastoral prayer. I’m not trying to be irreverent when I say that he looked like he was doing some sort of Vulcan mind-meld. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that the pastor looked…embarrassed. As if he were playacting and didn’t want to be found out.
I suppose this is one of the small elements that ring so true to me in my heart as I chase and stumble along after Catholicism. The Catholics I have met whom I consider to be sincere and devout take sacramentals seriously, and they are quite un-self-conscious about using and reverencing them.
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A prominent feature of life in today’s United States is hysteria. Things that once would barely have evoked a raised eyebrow now usher in screeching denunciations and wild threats and overwrought wailing. The fake news media (and God bless Donald Trump if for no other reason than for popularizing that perfectly apt label) have not only fanned the flames of public hysteria, they have poured gasoline all over every tiny spark they’ve discovered.
I can only remember one example of hysteria from my youth. In the mid-Seventies, the movies of Bruce Lee and his subsequent imitators kept martial arts and physical combat in the public’s mind. Anyone who’s ever seen a chop-socky flick knows that the nunchaku (or “nunchucks,” as they are commonly known), two sticks joined together by a chain or cord, a tool originally used as a rice flail in Okinawa, were the object of much fascination and discussion.
Popular movies aimed at teenagers and young folks always influence the culture, and the martial arts movies spurred youngsters to obtain or make their own nunchaku. Large numbers of teen boys carried a pair of “nunchucks” to school, only to see them confiscated by a vice principal after getting caught whirling them around during shop class and perhaps whacking some Poindexter between the shoulder blades during study hall. The popularity of these ancient oriental weapons (cue the Lalo Schifrin music) scared the crap out of adults, particularly school administrators and police officials. Letters to editors were written, meetings were convened, editorials were published, fears were expressed, and before anyone could yell “O’Hara!”, nunchaku were being banned as horrifyingly deadly weapons, weapons so lethal they should be be kept in safes underground with black mambas and honey badgers as guards.
And as a mediocre teen, even I had the good sense to see that it was all a farcical overreaction. I mean, any clown with a baseball bat or a broom handle could whip the ass off of anyone stupid enough to pull a pair of nunchaku. But the damage was done. It took decades before sober adults came to understand that nunchaku were no more dangerous than Jim Fixx with scissors. They look impressive, sure. But give me a sharp stick any day.
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I’m not really sure why that last four paragraphs came tumbling out of my fingers, but I’ll leave it be. It feels so good to be home, to be Friday night, to be tranquil in my soul after a very un-tranquil week. I hope all of my readers are well and at peace. I continue to pray for you all, my friends.
~ S.K. Orr