Let Me Mingle Tears with Thee and other stories

Be not far from me,

for trouble is near

and there is none to help.

Many bulls encompass me,

strong bulls of Bashan surround me;

they open wide their mouths at me,

like a ravening and roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint;

my heart is like wax,

it is melted within my breast;

my strength is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue cleaves to my jaws;

thou dost lay me in the dust of death.

* * *

There's always something, Holy Week—something to distract me from Triduum. This year, it's the darkness resulting after weeks of not sleeping enough and getting Maytagged* by anxiety.

Fine, I say. Good Friday is as good a day as any to face your own demons. I'll wear black and put my skull-and-crossbones earrings in and Goth out a little. It's appropriate.

Tomorrow I can fight the dementors with chocolate, but for today, black coffee and a little proactive anger might just be good enough. There's beauty to be found in darkness.

It's hard to photograph, but it's there.

* "Getting Maytagged": river guide slang for getting caught in a recirculating hydraulic, e.g., the looping wave that forms when water goes over a submerged rock. The experience is supposedly comparable to taking a spin in a frontloading washing machine, and can be almost as impossible to escape. Fun stuff.

* * *

Pollyanna also helps.

I am glad of many things, and tulips are not the least of these.

I'm so glad to have tomato plants to care for again.

Eggplant and peppers, too!

* * *

In this your bitter passion

Good Shepherd, think of me

with your most sweet compassion

unworthy though I be

Beneath your cross abiding

forever would I rest

in your dear love confiding

and with your presence blest.

Have a blessed Good Friday, and Happy Easter!

* * *

Eia, Mater, fons amoris
me sentire vim doloris
fac, ut tecum lugeam. ...

Tui Nati vulnerati,
tam dignati pro me pati,
poenas mecum divide.

Fac me tecum pie flere,
crucifixo condolere,
donec ego vixero.

(source)