“If I then, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet”
All the predictions were correct. It is raining, and it is raining loud enough to be heard on the roof and windows. The rain will be around all day. It is the warmest day in a while, in the mid 40’s. I have a couple of errands to do. That’s it on my dance card.
Today is Holy Thursday. I have a memory of this day from when I was around 13 or 14. My grandfather was a little man, not very tall. He was pompous and acted as if he were the tallest man in the world. He smelled of cigars. I remember in his house was a small round cabinet which opened to be a pipe holder, but I never saw him smoke a pipe. He used to rub his whiskers against our cheeks in some sort of weird fun for him. It hurt. He was the chief usher for the church. Anyway, my mother and I went to the Holy Thursday evening mass. During the mass was the ceremony of the priest washing the feet of some of his male parishioners, a sign of humility representing Christ washing the feet of his disciples. My grandfather was one of those men. There he was sitting in a chair on the altar with his feet bare. I remember how white his feet looked. When the priest started to wash his feet, my mother and I started laughing. We did it quietly, but our shoulders shook as did the pew. We couldn’t stop. It struck us as so very funny. We did calm down but not before a few looks from our pew mates.
I have a bit of a Bible story. When I was still in training in Ghana, I spent a week at my school setting up a checking account at the bank in town, seeing what I needed for my house and meeting the principal, Georgina Intsiful. I remember she drove a small blue car. I was sitting outside the front of my house when she drove up, got out of the car and introduced herself. She told me what classes I’d be teaching and explained some of my other duties. I was going to be the housemother of the bottom dorm of the new two story dorm, the one called Georgina. I would be the tutor on duty for a week in my turn, and one of the responsibilities was to lead morning prayer before breakfast. She asked me if I had brought my Bible. I was flummoxed. I had no Bible. I blurted out to her that I had parts of it memorized.
I can see the color of the hyacinths. The dafs have bloomed. The flowers know it is spring.
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March 28, 2024 at 1:01 pm
“I blurted out to her that I had parts of it memorized.” I’m laughing.
March 28, 2024 at 8:39 pm
Rowan,
I have always wondered what she thought of that!!
March 28, 2024 at 2:27 pm
Hi Kat,
The sky is clear today and the high temperature will reach a pleasant 74°.
I knew about Good Friday, but not about Holy Thursday. Washing of feet is a very old Jewish religious tradition which has lost favor in modern Jewish congregations. When I was kid, on the high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the descents of Aaron, the “Cohanim”, would at the end of the service give the priestly benediction. “May the lord keep you and bless you, etc.” Supposedly, prior to that, the descendants of Moses, the “Leviim”, would wash the feet of the “Cohanim”, not on the pulpit but offstage. The “Cohanim” would pull their prayer shawls over their heads, raise, out stretch their arms, and then recite the priestly benediction in Hebrew. They used the same hand gesture as Mr. Spock did on Star Trek as the Vulcan greeting. Leonard Nimoy, was Jewish and when the director needed a greeting in the episode where he returns to Vulcan, Mr. Spock remembered and used the same gesture.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2878949/jewish/Is-the-Vulcan-Salute-a-Jewish-Symbol.htm
March 28, 2024 at 8:37 pm
Hi Bob,
Internet is still raining and will rain tomorrow. For some reason the Cape is getting the most rain in the state. We are in the mid 40’s which is warmish. Our warmest days will be this weekend, and no rain is predicted.
I did not know where the gesture for, “Live long and prosper,” came from. That is really interesting as I am a Star Trek fan and love back stories.
The washing of the feet would have been natural for Jesus as he was a Jew as were all his disciples. I didn’t stop to remember that. I think it was the humility part which is why it was adopted by Christians.