Contemplating Good Friday Memories

17 Baha 164 B.E. – Friday, April 06, 2007

I have scattered memories of Good Friday, Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday scattered through my mind. I can remember specific events about the days, but which days and where did the event occur. It’s not that my memory is going, it’s just that those events occurred a long time ago and they appear like photos in my memory.

I remember Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday services crowded into pews of two different Southern Baptist Churches in Blackwell, Oklahoma; sometimes we went to the First Southern Baptist Church in Blackwell, the church my parents attended. Sometimes we attend services at the Southern Baptist Mission in the Smelter Heights; my grandparents went to this church.

I remember communion services, holding someone’s hand while we stood singing hymns, and palm leaves shaped into a cross. When these memories occurred, I’m not sure. I was quite small. I remember my father carrying me into a church. I remember going to church with my grandparents on specific days.

What else do I remember? Childhood memories are interesting. We remember, but we don’t remember everything. We remember snap shots of the events. The snap shots I remember are unlike the photos of those times I have in albums. The memories are in color, while some of the photos in the albums are black and white.

I remember my Grandpa; he always went to church on Easter Sunday and Christmas. He always took us to church (the Mission) when we stayed at my grandparent’s house over night. I also remember going to the church up town (the First Southern Baptist Church). I remember my father going to church on some of those Sundays, when he didn’t have to work. I remember my mother going to church with us.

I’m sixty years old. I searched and found the Baha’i Faith. I am in the process of writing the memories from my childhood, of putting them into poems and short personal essays. I am in the process of preserving the past. I am looking forward to the future, but preserving the past. I am writing my spiritual journey. The memories of my childhood have a great deal to do with my spiritual journey. It’s interesting how a person changes many things in their lives as they mature.

I found that the Baha’i Faith answered many of the questions I’ve had since childhood. I search the writing of The Bab, Baha’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l-Baha for the answers to my questions. The answers are there, I just have to find them. If a person doesn’t give up and looks, then they find the answers to their most important questions. The most important questions in my life are spiritual questions. I suspect it’s been that way since childhood. I think I’ll end this entry now.

My mother is still in the hospital and I’m going up to see her after while. Right now I need to see about laundry and fixing me something to eat. I think I’ll have chicken salad. I’ve got chicken, lettuce and blue cheese dressing. I think some either some apple juice or grape juice to drink. No coffee, not that I don’t drink it; just that I’ve finished all I made this morning and am not going to make any more.