Thursday, March 20, 2008

Office Closed for Good Friday

I've been taking Good Friday off since I was a junior agent working for another agency and was asked to help move to a new office on that day. I told my boss that not only would I not help with the move, that I was taking the day off. She turned to the other commissioned salesperson agent on her staff, who had worked for her for 7 years, and said, "what's with this Good Friday? I never heard of it." My co-worker said, "as a matter of fact, I've been meaning to tell you I'm taking it off too." From then on, we went to church services at noon at Marble Collegiate Church together every Good Friday for years, until she moved her office to Toms River.

As I've shared with you, my mom is a liberal Protestant minister and I grew up listening to (and knowing) Norman Vincent Peale, who held the pulpit at Marble. So when I take the time to reflect on Good Friday, it's also a time to reconnect with my roots and all those services with my parents.

I do the big Easter dinner as well, with lamb and ham. I shop, I clean, I cook and serve and clean up. And then I'm supposed to be in my office bright and early on Monday. The Europeans have it right, with Easter Monday off, although I know that fewer and fewer Americans do anything to celebrate the holiday.

I believe that my liberal Christian up-bringing is one of the reasons I am so drawn to horror.

After my mother retired, she asked me why I had become an agent of horror fiction and I said, "because it's the most religious form of fiction there is." She smiled and said, "good answer."

It's amazing that so many religious holidays fall on March 21st this year. See the yahoo article for the complete story. Fascinating. There is certainly an end-of-the world fantasy novel someone could come up with based on this rare occurrence! http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080321/wl_time/goodfridayhappypurimeidetc;_ylt=Au9HCsBycnm09TZERd3dadUDW7oF

I wish all of you who celebrate something on this day a joyful holiday and a swift advent of some real spring weather.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I understand your connection to Christianity and horror. I studied three years to become a minister before I became a heathern journalist. Now, much to my wife's consternation, I write only thrillers/horror instead of the sweet books she keeps requesting.

I can't help but explore the difference between good and evil.

Aimlesswriter said...

Happy Easter!

Christianity and Horror--interesting concept.
I do have a book about the end of the world, a zombie kind of creature and a little girl who talks to the Virgin Mary. I guess it is Horror and Christianity--hmmmm. Never realized this before.
Wow.
I think I just got some new ideas...

Spiced Apple Eye said...

I've been unable to read horror since I read Amityville as a ten year old. My grandmother was a great believer in the casting out of demons and she had me convinced that they were everywhere. I read that book about that time and to this day it takes less than 4 seconds for me to go from normal to locked in sheer terror at the thought of demons.

I suspect that demon battles are one of the few things I could write well, I scared more than a few people as a child battling them. Grandmother taught me that fear is all they need to possess a person, fear of them. What if in the process of writing that story they took my soul? The story wouldn't be worth reading without that fear.

I have to go, my hands are shaking, but I wanted to post this because I wanted to say that the line between fiction and reality when it comes to horror, God, demons, and pure evil is very thin.

Julie Weathers said...

Lori;

Thanks for sharing this. I seldom discuss politics or my faith in public. However, this was refreshing.

Julie

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