Solemn Liturgy of the Lord's Passion
I dreamed I met a Galilean, a most amazing man.
He had that look you very rarely find: the haunting hunted kind.
I asked him to say what had happened, how it all began.
I asked again; he never said a word, as if he hadn't heard.
And next the room was full of wild and angry men.
They seemed to hate this man; they fell on him and then--
They disappeared.
Then I saw thousands of millions crying for this man,
And then I heard them mentioning my name
And leaving me the blame.
In honor of Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil, let me point you to my Shepherd Book Firefly drabble The Road to Emmaus, originally written for the "Anticipation" challenge for 20weeks. (Also, if you missed it, I also wrote a Buffy ficlet for Good Friday: Mystery. Am I going to write something for tomorrow? I haven't decided yet.)
I finally managed to watch Jesus Christ Superstar this afternoon, part of my family's Good Friday tradition. The problem is I know this movie more or less by heart, and so unless I'm watching it with other people its very easy for me to get distracted. You have to understand, in my secular family Christmas is about Santa Claus and presents under the tree. Easter is about the Easter Bunny and finding eggs and candy that comes in baskets. I think this is a great thing, a testament to the richness of our culture, although it is rather problematic just how Christonormative it is (sort of?) in a pluralistic society.
But Good Friday is the only day out of the year that in my family could even be remotely called religious. We dye our Easter eggs and then settle in to watch the movie with a reverence that I can only describe as that to the sacred.
It is a retelling of the greatest story ever told, after all. When I walk away from Jesus Christ Superstar in all its weirdness--being filmed on location in Israel providing a strange and dissonant resoncance against the necessary suspension of disbelief needed to approach Rice and Lloyd Weber's retelling of the passion in terms of the 1970's--I do so totally moved, and its no surprise that this is one of the religions which dominate the world. (Over-excessive evangelization is the other reason, of course.) And that's why I spend all my time with a liturgical tradition, the RCC, even though it is a hundred times too conservative--both in its politcs and in its metaphysics/theology--for me.
Of course, I am 300 miles away from my family in central NY and supposed to be working on my thesis, but I do my best to recapture the effect. My parents have the DVD at home and I assume they and my brother watched it last night; I have a bootlegged VHS copy of a videocassette that we rented once.
I watched it today because yesterday was a crazy day full of craziness. First of all there was a class of course, and once I had finished class it was time to walk the Stations of the Cross. Only I had dressed for the spring days we've had lately, and it decided to rain instead, so I was shivering the entire way. Luckily I had my umbrella, the one the Red Cross sent me to thank me for donating blood right before I went to London and became inelligible for life.
I went down the hill and changed into the red dress shirt I actually think of as my "Good Friday" shirt, even though I had to iron it. (I'm sure it was still wrinkled when I was done ironing it, but at least not so bad.) Then I went back up the hill and attended the traditional Catholic service, and in the process of kneeling during all the intercessions I managed to put holes in the knees of both of the pant legs of my jeans. I went back down the hill again, drove downtown to pick up a sewing kit, then sewed up the holes in a way that screams lower class chic.
Then it was late enough in the day that I got to drive up the hill, which I did. Broke my fast at the Good Friday dinner and stayed around for Tenebrae. Afterwards, I went over the appartment of friends of my roommates and watched A History of Violence after playing Taboo. For antisocial me, this was a very busy day.
Because I am basically in the same situation of fox1013, having to write 30 more pages of thesis in the course of the next week, I'm going to repeat her meme here:See. Okay. I have 30 pages of thesis to write. I have a week to do it in. I now have thirty prompts here. Unlike, say, Jules, who was smart and picked one character, I'm leaving it open to any female character that I know and can write (labeled as "girl" but women, dolls, chicks, dames, etc. are all fine as well), or that I at least know and you want to BELIEVE I can write. So just request one, and specify with it what girl you want and what number.
So, basically, you claim one, I write under 500 words of it in the comments. If I get over 30 requests and you haven't requested yet, feel free to ask for any prompt in a different fandom than was first started, becaues it is totally possible that my thesis will go over, but let's cover all 30 first, shall we? That'll be fun. And, theoretically, will finish my thesis in the process.
Let's give it a try, shall we? (Although I must admit I'm utterly clueless as to how this is uppose to help me get the thesis done.)
1. Naughty Girl
3. Sly Girl
4. Angsty Girl
5. On-Vacation Girl
6. Horny Girl
7. Changing-In-The-[someplace-canon-specific; please specify] Girl
8. Excited Girl
9. Book-Reading Girl
10. Dancing Girl
11. Jealous Girl
12. Turned-On Girl
13. Caring Girl
14. On-Her-Knees Girl
15. Obedient Girl
16. Dominant Girl
17. Losing-Her-Virginity Girl
18. Naive Girl
19. Eating-Her-Lunch-And-Drinking-From-A-Soda-Bottle Girl
29. Greedy Girl
21. Daring Girl
22. Exploring Girl
23. Swimming-In-The-Buff Girl
24. Bath-Time Girl
25. Disheveled Girl
26. Exhausted Girl
27. Well-Shagged Girl
28. Kick-Ass Girl
29. Injured Girl
30. Protective Girl
He had that look you very rarely find: the haunting hunted kind.
I asked him to say what had happened, how it all began.
I asked again; he never said a word, as if he hadn't heard.
And next the room was full of wild and angry men.
They seemed to hate this man; they fell on him and then--
They disappeared.
Then I saw thousands of millions crying for this man,
And then I heard them mentioning my name
And leaving me the blame.
In honor of Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil, let me point you to my Shepherd Book Firefly drabble The Road to Emmaus, originally written for the "Anticipation" challenge for 20weeks. (Also, if you missed it, I also wrote a Buffy ficlet for Good Friday: Mystery. Am I going to write something for tomorrow? I haven't decided yet.)
I finally managed to watch Jesus Christ Superstar this afternoon, part of my family's Good Friday tradition. The problem is I know this movie more or less by heart, and so unless I'm watching it with other people its very easy for me to get distracted. You have to understand, in my secular family Christmas is about Santa Claus and presents under the tree. Easter is about the Easter Bunny and finding eggs and candy that comes in baskets. I think this is a great thing, a testament to the richness of our culture, although it is rather problematic just how Christonormative it is (sort of?) in a pluralistic society.
But Good Friday is the only day out of the year that in my family could even be remotely called religious. We dye our Easter eggs and then settle in to watch the movie with a reverence that I can only describe as that to the sacred.
It is a retelling of the greatest story ever told, after all. When I walk away from Jesus Christ Superstar in all its weirdness--being filmed on location in Israel providing a strange and dissonant resoncance against the necessary suspension of disbelief needed to approach Rice and Lloyd Weber's retelling of the passion in terms of the 1970's--I do so totally moved, and its no surprise that this is one of the religions which dominate the world. (Over-excessive evangelization is the other reason, of course.) And that's why I spend all my time with a liturgical tradition, the RCC, even though it is a hundred times too conservative--both in its politcs and in its metaphysics/theology--for me.
Of course, I am 300 miles away from my family in central NY and supposed to be working on my thesis, but I do my best to recapture the effect. My parents have the DVD at home and I assume they and my brother watched it last night; I have a bootlegged VHS copy of a videocassette that we rented once.
I watched it today because yesterday was a crazy day full of craziness. First of all there was a class of course, and once I had finished class it was time to walk the Stations of the Cross. Only I had dressed for the spring days we've had lately, and it decided to rain instead, so I was shivering the entire way. Luckily I had my umbrella, the one the Red Cross sent me to thank me for donating blood right before I went to London and became inelligible for life.
I went down the hill and changed into the red dress shirt I actually think of as my "Good Friday" shirt, even though I had to iron it. (I'm sure it was still wrinkled when I was done ironing it, but at least not so bad.) Then I went back up the hill and attended the traditional Catholic service, and in the process of kneeling during all the intercessions I managed to put holes in the knees of both of the pant legs of my jeans. I went back down the hill again, drove downtown to pick up a sewing kit, then sewed up the holes in a way that screams lower class chic.
Then it was late enough in the day that I got to drive up the hill, which I did. Broke my fast at the Good Friday dinner and stayed around for Tenebrae. Afterwards, I went over the appartment of friends of my roommates and watched A History of Violence after playing Taboo. For antisocial me, this was a very busy day.
Because I am basically in the same situation of fox1013, having to write 30 more pages of thesis in the course of the next week, I'm going to repeat her meme here:See. Okay. I have 30 pages of thesis to write. I have a week to do it in. I now have thirty prompts here. Unlike, say, Jules, who was smart and picked one character, I'm leaving it open to any female character that I know and can write (labeled as "girl" but women, dolls, chicks, dames, etc. are all fine as well), or that I at least know and you want to BELIEVE I can write. So just request one, and specify with it what girl you want and what number.
So, basically, you claim one, I write under 500 words of it in the comments. If I get over 30 requests and you haven't requested yet, feel free to ask for any prompt in a different fandom than was first started, becaues it is totally possible that my thesis will go over, but let's cover all 30 first, shall we? That'll be fun. And, theoretically, will finish my thesis in the process.
Let's give it a try, shall we? (Although I must admit I'm utterly clueless as to how this is uppose to help me get the thesis done.)
1. Naughty Girl
3. Sly Girl
4. Angsty Girl
5. On-Vacation Girl
6. Horny Girl
7. Changing-In-The-[someplace-canon-specific; please specify] Girl
8. Excited Girl
9. Book-Reading Girl
10. Dancing Girl
11. Jealous Girl
12. Turned-On Girl
13. Caring Girl
14. On-Her-Knees Girl
15. Obedient Girl
16. Dominant Girl
17. Losing-Her-Virginity Girl
18. Naive Girl
19. Eating-Her-Lunch-And-Drinking-From-A-Soda-Bottle Girl
29. Greedy Girl
21. Daring Girl
22. Exploring Girl
23. Swimming-In-The-Buff Girl
24. Bath-Time Girl
25. Disheveled Girl
26. Exhausted Girl
27. Well-Shagged Girl
28. Kick-Ass Girl
29. Injured Girl
30. Protective Girl