Good Friday for the Non-Christian
When I saw this on AOL News it struck me that if I post Ramadan for Non-Muslims, then it also makes sense to publish Good Friday for Non-Christians.
Different Christian groups have varying traditions on Good Friday. In our church, Good Friday starts on the evening before, Maundy Thursday, with a stripping of the altar. In some churches, there is also a gathering where the priests of the parish wash the feet of members of the congregation, as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, as a demonstration of the humble spirit required, that we are to serve one another.
Good Friday: Origins, Observances And Fasting Rules
by Neha Prakash
Good Friday is the Christian commemoration of Jesus’ Passion story; specifically his betrayal, trial and crucifixion that are described in the Christian gospels. In the sequence of Holy Week, it follows the rituals marking the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and precedes the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Since Jewish tradition dictates that Friday begins at sundown on Thursday, the events of Good Friday traditionally begin with the betrayal of Jesus by his apostle Judas in the garden of Gethsemane. He is subsequently brought before the Sanhedrin council, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and King Herod of Galilee with the ultimate outcome being his condemnation to death by crucifixion.
The trial of Jesus and his crucifixion are described in varying detail by all four canonical Gospels, the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman writer Tacitus. While the specific events and theological implications are widely disputed, the historicity of the occasion is widely accepted.
Good Friday church services generally revolve around the reading of the Gospel accounts of the Passion story. The Catholic liturgy for Good Friday also includes the distribution of the Eucharist that was consecrated during the Mass on Maundy Thursday and special veneration of the cross by inviting individuals to approach the altar and kiss the wood of the crucifix.
Many Christians also mark Good Friday by participating in or watching processions meant to replicate the journey that Jesus took through the streets of Jerusalem while carrying his cross to the site of his crucifixion at Calvary. Two of the largest and most famous of these occasions are Rome’s Way of the Cross that leads to the Colosseum and is presided over by the Pope and the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem — a procession along the traditionally marked route of Jesus that is attended by thousands of pilgrims each year.
Good Friday is also a day of strict fasting for Catholics and some other Christians. As with all the Fridays of Lent, Catholics are instructed to abstain from eating meat. As with Ash Wednesday, the fasting rules for Good Friday dictate that adherents should eat only one full meal with two smaller meals being permitted as long as no other food is consumed in the interim. The use of other meat-based products such as lard, chicken broth or dairy is not traditionally forbidden, although many individuals elect to make their Good Friday meals entirely vegetarian or vegan.
In many countries with strong Christian traditions such as those in Latin America, Good Friday is observed as a national holiday. Good Friday is not a federal holiday in the United States, but several states observe it as an official state holiday by closing government offices, courts and banks. Many private businesses also choose to close on Good Friday in addition to financial markets.
Early Signs of Alzheimer’s Disease
I’m at the age where we start worrying we are coming down with Alzheimer’s if we forget a name, or why we went up the stairs. Here are the official guidelines to things that indicate onset of this insidious disease from Everyday Health:
Caregiving in Early Alzheimer’s Disease
By Chris Iliades, MD
Medically reviewed by Pat F. Bass III, MD, MS, MPH
A caregiver’s role often starts with the diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. At this juncture, it’s important to deal with both long-term planning and with immediate medical and psychological issues in order to make life as normal as possible for your loved one. To begin, it’s helpful to become familiar with some of the more common symptoms of early, or Stage I, Alzheimer’s disease. These often include:
Misplacing items and/or storing them in odd places. A person with Stage I Alzheimer’s, for instance, may put things in strange places, like a wallet in the freezer.
Repeating the same phrase or story, completely unaware of the repetition and having difficulty finding the right words when talking.
Resisting decisions, even of the simplest sort.
Taking longer with routine chores and becoming upset if something unexpected occurs.
Forgetting to eat, eating only one kind of food, or eating all the time.
Neglecting hygiene and wearing the same clothes day after day, and insisting they are clean.
Becoming obsessive about checking, searching, or hoarding things of no value.
Lisa Gwyther, MSW, the director of the family support program at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, N.C, notes that depression is also very common in early Alzheimer’s. “A depression that comes on later in life, especially in someone without a prior history of depression, is often the first symptom of Alzheimer’s,” she says. Once the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease has been made, it is a difficult time for the person and the family. In addition to feeling depressed, the person with early Alzheimer’s may go through periods of anger, fear, and anxiety.
What Can Family, Friends, and Caregivers Do to Help?
There are a number of measures that can be taken to help a loved one cope better with the challenges presented by early Alzheimer’s disease.
Get a complete medical evaluation.
The first step in caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease is to make sure the diagnosis is accurate. Some possible treatments depend on a precise diagnosis, and your health care provider may recommend a number of tests. Because people with early Alzheimer’s are often not aware of their own forgetfulness and can get quite adept at hiding it from others, family members and caregivers can help the doctor take a good medical history. The doctor will do a functional status assessment to determine if it is safe for the person to live alone, drive a car, or do their own finances. “The ability to do financial calculations is lost early in Alzheimer’s disease. The person may pay bills twice or neglect to pay bills and get themselves in a financial mess. A trusted family member and financial advisor can be a big help at this point,” says Gwyther. Finally, your doctor may recommend a number of possible treatments or referral to an Alzheimer’s specialist.
Don’t shut the person with early Alzheimer’s out.
“One of the most common mistakes that family and caregivers make is to marginalize the person with Alzheimer’s. As time goes on, the family and the caregivers will have to take over more and more decisions for the person. But in the beginning, let them participate as much as possible,” says Gwyther.
Help the person with early Alzheimer’s stay active and healthy.
Research shows that social and mental activity may slow the progression of the disease. A diet high in natural fats such as fish, nuts, and olive oil can help too. Vitamins such as B, C, and E have all been recommended for early Alzheimer’s disease.
Provide a stable environment.
People with early Alzheimer’s do better if their day is very structured. Help them by creating routines around eating, bathing, and sleeping. Keep the environment familiar by making sure things stay in their usual places. Avoid surprises and confusion as much as possible. Sometimes the most helpful thing to do is to just be nearby.
You can also help by getting help.
Contact one of the many national organizations that help with Alzheimer’s care. Most of these organizations will have a local chapter near you. The Alzheimer’s Disease Education & Referral Center, the Alzheimer’s Association, Children of Aging Parents, Eldercare Locator, and Family Caregiver Alliance are all nationwide, nonprofit organizations that offer information and services for Alzheimer’s disease caregivers.
Finally, remember that although it now possible to slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, it can’t yet be stopped. As a family member, friend, or caregiver, you can be a tremendous asset to the person with early Alzheimer’s by being an advocate, as well as supportive and available. While someone with Alzheimer’s may not be able to show or express it, they always feel your affection and compassion.
Oral Sex More Lethal to Men than Women
This article from AOL Health News makes the point that while all females in the USA are encouraged to be vaccinated against HPV, young men, who are statistically more vulnerable, have not been vaccinated. Many women find themselves unexpectedly at risk when they are exposed to HPV by an unfaithful husband or boyfriend who has picked it up during oral sex.
Research: Oral Sex Puts Men at Risk for Oral Cancer
Mara Gay
Contributor
Rates of oral cancer are on the rise among men, and researchers say the culprit isn’t the devil you might think.
The rising rates of oral cancer aren’t being caused by tobacco, experts say, but by HPV, the same sexually transmitted virus responsible for the vast majority of cases of cervical cancer in women.
Millions of women and girls have been vaccinated against HPV, or human papillomavirus, but doctors now say men exposed to the STD during oral sex are at risk as well and may have higher chances of developing oral cancer.
About 65 percent of oral cancer tumors were linked to HPV in 2007, according to the National Cancer Institute. And the uptick isn’t occurring among tobacco smokers.
“We’re looking at non-smokers who are predominantly white, upper middle class, college-educated men,” Brian Hill, the executive director of the Oral Cancer Foundation, told AOL News by phone.
Tobacco use has declined over the past decade, but rates of HPV infections have risen and affect at least 50 percent of the sexually active American population, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
HPV-16, the strain of the virus that causes cervical cancer in women, has become the leading cause of oral cancer in non-smoking men, Hill said, citing research in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“When the No. 1 cause of your disease goes down [tobacco use], you would expect that the incidence of disease would go down, but that hasn’t happened,” he said. “In our world, this is an epidemic.”
Dr. Jennifer Grandis, the vice chairwoman for research at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on head and neck cancers, said doctors have been seeing the HPV virus in most oral cancer tumors. She said the massive push to vaccinate girls and women between the ages of 11 and 26 against HPV should have included boys and men from the beginning. Gardasil, one of the two major vaccines used to prevent HPV, wasn’t approved for use in males in the United States until 2009, three years after it was approved for women.
“The thinking is changing,” Grandis told AOL News in a phone interview. “But at the time [the vaccine] was licensed, there wasn’t such an awareness about head or oral cancers or a willingness to accept that males played a part in the transmission of the virus,” she said. “I think this idea that we only protect our daughters with the vaccine is nuts anyway, particularly because they’re having sex with our boys.”
Men have a greater chance of contracting the HPV virus from oral sex than women do from the same behavior, though researchers aren’t exactly sure why. Oral cancer has a low survival rate because it is generally not discovered until it has spread to other areas, according to the CDC. Only half of people who’ve been diagnosed with oral cancer will live longer than five years.
Apalachicola Oysters
“Where are the oysters from?” AdventureMan always asks. He eats oysters raw, and the oysters from Apalachicola are really, really good.
He is eating Apalachicola oysters every chance he gets, to make up for not getting fresh oysters last year. It was almost a year ago when the oil spill seriously impacted on Gulf Seafood. They say it’s OK now, but no one is really sure what the long term implications and impact may be.
For now, he is really enjoying these oysters:
Holy Week Evensong at Christ Church, Pensacola
My favorite service of all, Evensong. Everything is just moving along, peacefully, penitentially, as we enter Holy Week, when all of a sudden, the choir is singing Gounod, the Jerusalem anthem from Gallia. Oh, WOW! Gounod makes me grin, and he moves me. Gounod . . . Gounod ROCKS!
And here you can here the anthem:
I was introduced to Gounod in Doha. Our priest, Ian Young, led a group called the Doha Singers, and he chose challenging music. We learned Gounod’s Mass for St. Cecelia, and the music is the kind that gets into your blood. I couldn’t get enough of it. I never get sick of it. Gounod is music with a sense of drama and a sense of humor about itself. I think it is his sense of timing, how you hold a note just a little longer than you would expect, and then rollick on to the next. I had never heard this piece before, but Gounod is so individual, so unique – it had to be Gounod.
It was a perfect evening, a lovely service, and the sun shone in through the cross as it set:
At the end, we sang one of my very favorite hymns, The Day Thou Gavest Lord, is Ended:
I admit it, I am pretty tough, but these words make me weak and weepy:
The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,
The darkness falls at Thy behest;
To Thee our morning hymns ascended,
Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.
All in all, a lovely day. Our son joined us for the first episode of The Game of Thrones on HBO. He’s read all the books, I am on book 2, and AdventureMan is reading the first book, the one on which this series is based. Great way to begin our week. 🙂
Scamese
This was in my newest New Yorker magazine, originally given me by Little Diamond, now I can’t live without my subscription. 🙂 There is the kind of news you get on television, like what they have pictures of, maybe not the most important stuff but visual. Then there is National Public Radio news, and the New York Times, and The New Yorker. The New Yorker also has some of the greatest, funniest covers ever, and great cartoons. This one, as you might imagine, is near and dear to my heart:
The Royal Wedding
Where do you find these things??? I laughed myself silly! Thanks you, Hayfa!
Why I Love My Daughter-in-Law
“Can I come by?” she asked on a Saturday morning. “I have something for you.”
“Now? Sure! I’ve been working outside and I’m just cleaning up a little in the kitchen. It’s a great time.”
Moments later she was there, empty-handed. We hugged, but she laughed when she saw my puzzled face and said “it’s outside by your back gate.”
We walked back together, and there it was, just what I wanted:
She bought me a compost-maker!
I’ve got diamonds. I’ve got pearls. I’ve got everything I need to decorate myself and my house, too much even. But what I don’t have – or I didn’t until now – was a compost maker. This girl knows how to thrill my heart.
We spent a few minutes reading the instructions and putting it together. Wooo HOOOOO!
Don’t you hate to waste? I’ve been throwing out carrot peelings, and onion skins, and salad mix that’s gone a little gooey in my refrigerator, my coffee grounds, my newspapers – they are all fodder for making good compost, and good compost is desperately needed when your yard is greatly sand. Wooo HOOOO! Now, I can make my own compost!
I totally love it.
I decided to cut back this year, not to try to grow so many tomatoes and so many peppers. I don’t know what happened, but I had ordered some seeds, and I couldn’t let them go to waste, and I bought a couple tomatoes that are supposed to do well in this area, and we still have many nights with temperatures lower than 70 degrees (F) so I can still hope to have good tomatoes before the great heat sets in for the summer. Some people tell me that if I can keep the tomatoes going through the summer, just green, not setting tomatoes, some of them will start setting tomatoes again once the weather starts cooling once again. I also learned that the time to start your seedlings in Florida is like January or February, to get good tomato crops before the heat starts, so I got started about a month too late. On the other hand, they are doing great. We shall see.
This is what ‘cutting back’ looks like:
I found the Black Krims at the 14th Annual Emerald Coast Garden Show at the PSC Campus in MIlton last weekend. Mr. B’s Tomatoes was right where I bought them last year, and it was my first stop. I also bought one he said would also produce well for me, called Tommy Toe. It’s a weird name. Tomato people often give their tomatoes weird names.
My roses are growing like crazy, unfortunately, a week before Easter. I wonder if I will have any left to give to the church for the Easter services?
I planted tulips and Iris in the fall; the tulips are coming up but I have yet to see a real tulip bloom. The irises look good – I am thinking they may do well here, and that is a really good thing because I love iris. (I pulled the weed)
Three of my tomato plants have tomatoes on them!
Happy Five Year Anniversary
“How did he sound?” AdventureMan asked about our son.
I smiled.
“Actually, he sounded fine. He sounded like there is nothing in the world he wants to do more than to stay home with his sick baby.”
Everything was planned. Our son and his wife were on their way out to a special dinner, to celebrate five years of successful marriage. We were signed on to babysit, something we do with gladness. We knew how the evening would go. We arrive, HappyBaby runs shrieking with joy to AdventureMan, running right around me if I get in the way. I fix dinner, feed the HappyBaby, AdventureMan takes him down to play, then bathtime, then bed.
Not this time.
Our son called us about an hour before we were scheduled to arrive.
‘It’s all off” he said. “HappyBaby is sick, fever, lethargic. We’re just going to stay home. You can come by if you just want to hang out.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” I said, a little in shock. HappyBaby has been having a long spell of wellness. “I’m making spaghetti for us and HappyBaby,” I replied, “but there’s a lot. Can I bring dinner?”
He said yes. We made a salad, AdventureMan found a really good bottle of wine, we headed down. AdventureMan held HappyBaby – not so happy, very tired and a little fussy – while we dished up; I finished and held him so AdventureMan could eat. HappyBaby was fine with coming to me, his arms went around me, his little head went down on my shoulder, and it was like when he was little little, except he is so big now that I can’t sit down, or I can’t easily get up again. He’s a big boy now.
I always joke that I am the grandmother who can bore her grandson to sleep. We stood outside for a while, watching the cars go by, watching the sun set over the Bayou, and when the cool breeze started blowing I took him inside. He was so sleepy, he didn’t complain. We rocked, and I put him down in his crib, fast asleep.
It wasn’t the evening we expected. It was, for us, even better, having a relaxed time with our son and his wife, getting to put HappyBaby to sleep once again. It turned out to be a very sweet evening.
We’ve signed up to do the babysitting again when HappyBaby is well and our son and his wife can go out for that dinner. Five years of marriage is worth celebrating. We are so proud of them and the way they handle life, it’s joys and disappointments, struggles, challenges and triumphs. They are a good team, and we celebrate that they found one another and work so well together.
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