The Flatpicking Pilgrim's Progress

“The second before the sun went out, we saw a wall of dark shadow come speeding at us. We no sooner saw it than it was upon us, like thunder. It roared up the valley. It slammed our hill and knocked us out. It was the monstrous swift shadow cone of the moon.” Annie Dillard Support the show

They stood at a distance while the women cried, brokenhearted, devastated, sobbing, and his mother beyond soothing. Support the show

Poetic reflection. When your hopes are dead and you're going to the tomb with an impossible stone to move, what will you do? Support the show

Excerpt from SHADOW PRAYERS. A poetic reflection on the bewildering sentence in the Apostles' Creed that says, "He descended into hell." Support the show

On a trip to Israel in 2010 I ended up voluntarily being locked in to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional site of the crucifixion. As the crowds left and a handful of vigil-sitters and contemplators stayed behind, this happened. Support the show

There are two charcoal fires mentioned in the gospel narrative of Holy Week. One is where people were warming their hands and identified Peter as one of the disciples. The other was on the shores of Galilee. Support the show

Three poems about the pivotal day in the Christian story, full of every human failure and treachery and the heroic and inexplicable faithfulness of Jesus, immovable as all around him collapsed. All poems by Gary Furr."Good Friday""Pontius Pilate""The Crucifixion" Support the show

A poem about Tennebrae,f the observance of the deathly silence between crucifixion and Easter Sunday Support the show

The terrible silences of holy week give spaces for something radically new.. But we anre afraid, so afraid, that we are going to be alone, that we are forsaken, that there is only absence and death and decay. We talk about presence, but truthfully, we do almost everything we can to keep it out of our awareness. We may see things we don’t want to see and have to do something about

A look at the last week of Jesus of Nazareth's life on earth offers a question for us all. When the end is near, how should I live? What would I do differently? Support the show