Let me tell you two a story over coffee:

Your grandmother, Jules that belongs to the two of you handcrafted & hung this greenery on our front door on Palm Sunday 2020, joining a social media effort to form a sense of community & hope in the forming concentric circles of a pandemic. Like a roaring Amen Corner gallery over a Sunday eagle at Augusta National’s Masters, everybody was losing their minds over something, be it masks, civil liberty, no Easter services or at best, like we observed Good Friday & communion, an online service in the den with Ocean Spray cranberry juice & Ritz crackers providing the elements.

Truth is, most of us fought the worst of our angels, & the roars began. I teetered with the addiction of holding a grudge & the redemption of giving grace, a battle I brought with me to Lent this year. I tottered between delivering a coronation of thorns & a salvation of resurrection, a battle still waged daily. On that see saw my humanity will forever struggle with the ups & downs of acting like I want to & acting like I’m supposed to on the journey of the man I am & the man I desire to be, it has been balanced & properly tilted by a stone that rolled, the rolling a one-way trip in celebration of a rebirth.

Since then, we’ve celebrated your births, dealt with medical crises, dementia, saw another 3000 words go unsold & everything in between as life’s roaring fallout hit the floor. We’ve had to get up, pray up, show up, & not give up like never before but Good Friday & Easter happen every year. Every. Year. Every year making Christmas relevant instead of it being a story of an unwed 14-year-old Middle Eastern girl giving birth in a barn at tax time. John Steinbeck said he wrote & took his chances.

When it comes to faith, here’s where I take mine. Good Friday. “How could it be good?” A man dies an unjust death after sitting at a supper table where his 12 closest allies turned on him, sold him out & he knew it before the table was set that Thursday night. That’s right, 12. From silver coins to denials with a rooster’s background vocals to falling asleep while he prayed dripping blood to absence while he hung naked before the world, save one who slept on him to doubt. All 12. Easy traits of failure at which to point an accusing finger. Traits not so comfortable when three fingers return the roaring accusations.

Good Friday roared when a curtain tore & the earth quaked, paving the way for Easter when Mary Magdalene, Peter, & John heard an empty tomb shout a forever incomplete obituary, Good Friday’s here, Easter’s here & it’s roaring. Proving C. S. Lewis’ statement of “Love is never wasted. Its value does not depend on reciprocity”, it’s remarkable to consider that the first people Jesus showed his face to on returning were the last people who turned their back on Him. On days paid in full or paying rent, Good Friday’s here, Easter’s here & it’s roaring. On fire or frozen, brilliant or benign, Good Friday’s here, Easter’s here & it’s roaring. Rainbows or rain clouds, peaks or valleys, Good Friday is here, Easter’s here & it’s roaring. Easter afternoon, that crowd in Augusta will roar for a shot that resurrects a golfer’s round.

As you two teeter & totter & play your life’s 18, whether you’re together or cracks appear, I will always be a loud roar in both your galleries, celebrating big wins & the little ones that don’t get but deserve applause or comfort in defeat. May you both hear the roars of Good Friday, ’cause it’s here, Easter’s here & that stone ain’t rolling back, it’s roaring.

The football pic, that’s your Uncle wearing #74 & today’s his birthday. The Book of Proverbs holds that “… a wise son makes a glad father…” It does & that makes this Good Friday even gooder…