Thinking on. I realise that i have spent a large part of this term railing against my university and the binds and rules that it as an establishment body asks me to adhere to. I guess this is what happens when you pick a rebel as your inspiration. Jesus has become a somewhat watered down rebel over the past century or so in art in Western culture, bizarrely pale complexioned, often blue eyed and blonde, generally he looks a bit wet, fit but wet. The Jesus i have encountered through research including deep meditation is nothing like that milksop. I don't think my Jesus is much like Tony Blair's or Theresa May's or the awful banker turned bishop, Justin Welby, who threw in his lot with the Conservatives at the last general election aware perhaps of how tied up the Church of England is with the moneyed elite. 
As I have walked the Via Dolorosa with Jesus these past few months i have found myself beside a man who took on the establishment, who spoke out against injustice, who was betrayed by Judas, who was betrayed again by Peter. I met the most celebrated women in his life, Mary his mother, and Mary Magdalen whose relationship with him is subject to debate. I met too his fearful father, not Joseph, tho' maybe Joseph, the man who married his mother but God the father. Who is this wicked character that would send his only son to suffer for the world ? Why do the strong always ask the weak to carry the load ? I think of priests buggering children, and those children silenced, carrying that rape as their crime, their sin. I think of the rich sitting on the backs of the poor. And i know that tho' i am not filthy rich like Branson or the Wetherspoons man, or the Tory cabinet, still my wealth, my wardrobe, my spanish strawberries, my kenyan green beans, my tea, my coffee, my so-on and so-on are the produce of someone else's underpaid labour. Is that right ? No. 
I came to the end of my stations meditation on Passion Sunday. The day given to mark Jesus riding in to Jerusalem to crowds lining his way, laying palm leaves before him so it is told. They wanted him to save them but he was only a man. The reason the images of the stations of the cross began in churches was because most parishioners did not have the money to spare to go on pilgrimage to Rome or Jerusalem and so these stood in their stead. I have been to see four sets in different churches, the fourth moved me to tears and i hope to return to look at them when England is open again. Journeying with these images has allowed me to feel the passage of christ's path to the cross. 
In Colm Toibin's Testament of Mary, which i wish i had a copy of, his mother gets thoroughly fed up with him. Its a reasonable maternal response to a son who is pushing his luck with the law and questioning and defying authority. Just as Jesus is depicted as being pretty fine with his suffering especially in recent years, his mother has also been made to be compliant and accepting. How convenient for the patriarchy as symbolised by God that these two take their punishment for existing so gently. 
Many years ago i made a nativity scene including, obviously, a Mary figure holding her baby, Jesus. As a link between my ASU unit and my SNU unit I asked Steve, one of the 3d workshop technicians, if she and another old made-by-me ornament could be printed on the 3d printer. One of the joys of this printer is that the objects can be sized up and down. Another is the scaffolding the object needs to be printed. Mary being fairly compact needed not so much, but the two figures in a sympathetic embrace needed loads. Why do i speak of these now, except as a link between my two units ? Why ? Because the scaffolding made me think about how much we take from the earth to support that which we raise above the earth whether that be high rise buildings, space travel or a billionaire lifestyle or aspiration to that lifestyle and worship of money. 
It seems to me that the bible is pretty clear that when man gets above himself and starts to live an insupportable life, God turns on man. Perhaps this is the moral of the story of Jesus. Here is a man named the son of God, as we all are sons or daughters of some kind of god i guess, if god is creation and not obliged to belong to a single faith or religion. This son of god, a man who had the courage to stand up and say "no", was prepared to die for his right to speak out. Why then are those who profess to follow him so abject in their worship of all that he seemed to abhor. Is the cross a choice we have to make ? 
Here as we stand at a crossroads, i am sure now that this virus will separate further humanity into those who believe that others should suffer for their comforts and those that don't. And of those that don't, those too will also divide in two as their response to catastrophes whatever they are. differs and leads them away from each other. Easter is close now. We as Jesus must prepare to carry our cross, the choice we make will be how we move into the future, so we need to choose wisely i think. 

It would be a bit daft not to mention covid 19 aka the corona virus in this blog. I am in England and it has begun to take lives and there is fear in the air. We saw China lock down Wuhan and we thought this is a Chinese thing, then it shifted to Singapore and we thought it's an Asian thing. Then it hit Italy and still it felt like something that happened to other people. Oh the innocence. Oh the wilful ignorance. 
A week ago when i was writing my blog i was blithering about this and that, all relevant then, all relevant now, but also very yesterday. To coin a phrase "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away". Britain is discovering who it is in crisis. Each of us is discovering who we are when trouble hits the collective. My university is apparently still opening on Monday. Academics are now teaching online - I imagine this will feel weird - but technicians are required to come in as the workshops will be open. Is this right ? I guess that what we see as all but essential workers pull in is who is essential and who isn't. I went in to uni on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week as i had things i wanted to finish or at least saw off their sprues and pouring cups so that i could take them home. I also had a few print things i wanted to do. On Monday I questioned my decision but also had shopping etc to do, by Thursday it began to feel really socially irresponsible to be doing things that were not essential and so from Thursday evening i have seen and spoken face to face with no-one. 
Ordinarily this kind of solitude would be something of a treat. I am reclusive by nature. I need solitude as much as, maybe more than, i need company. But in the current atmosphere its a little scary. Rough voices on the street outside on Friday evening remind me that not everyone has pulled in. Friday was supposed to be the last day of trading for pubs, restaurants and bars. I gather that many were packed. Of course they were. 
Of course they were ? Why ? Because for some the response to the proximity of Death is to want to go out in flames, do or die, i live to live let Death take me if he can. Why is Death male ? Is Death male ? I am shyer of his embrace. In retreat i worry that i have a temperature, is that a tickling cough. Will I die ? Am i strong enough to beat the thing that threatens my, and others, existence. 
It is odd to be so close to a disease that may or may not be biblical but surely is a reminder that many years ago disease took more of us than most of us can remember, measles, scarlet fever, tuberculosis all common enough, my grandfather's parents died of TB leaving him an orphan at 17. Hard to imagine but TB has become a hidden killer in recent times, some strains resistant to antibiotics. Please fact check me on this. 
Death has stalked me all this year, in the form of grief for Jon, yes years gone now, but not forgotten and still loved for better for worse. And also poor Jesus sentenced to death by crucifixion, carrying the bloody cross to the site of his execution. This week i have been dying on my cross, it can surely only get better from there. Stations 13 and 14 are "Jesus is taken down from the cross" and "Jesus is laid in the tomb respectively". The resurrection is optional. I have cut out 14 pieces of copper and covered them in hard ground and i hope to scratch out marks on these over Easter. But whether i do the resurrection will depend i guess on whether the resurrection feels pertinent. 
The Easter story is a potent tale. It is one man, calling out for justice, willing to carry the sins of the world on his shoulders, to die for that world. Make no mistake this is a hero. No wonder the story has lasted. Its a shame he has too often been poorly represented by his priests and worshippers. 
One of the things about stories that last is that they resonate. They resonate with a part of us. My blogs about grief and Jon have had more hits because people relate to the story. Lovers torn apart, death, grief, all these things are invested in our body memory. If we have never loved, we may long for love, if we have loved we may feel another's pain, if we are a wretch we may scorn love and the ring is different but the call to our hearts path is still clear. 
Here i am blogging, let me say its my reflective journal. Because i went in to uni last week i have lots of bronze things to finish at home, they would have been finished amateurly even with Jim's help and guidance in the workshop at home their finish will be even less well executed but they are symbols of my trying. I doubt that it will be clear how much work i have put in in a digital portfolio. That's sad but not the end of the world. This term has been hard it has taken resolve and determination to carry on. There have been falls and i have had to get back up. But what i know is that in my body like invisible ink i carry the work i have done. This i think is all we can ever take out of life that which we have done is ours to bear. 
I think its awful that Jesus had to carry the sins of the world. I think if God was his father and made him do that then he was an awful father. I think that each of us must carry the weight of our being. Not in the manner that Thatcher's selfish-me-first cult decrees but as our belonging, as our knowing that that which we are is the trace that we leave behind when we die and to be mindful of the trace we leave for it makes a difference.