dear friends and lovers,

i have realized that updating weekly is a problem for me and that they are usually long and rambly about stuff i do and other boring things. so i'm going to try to transition to updating more than once a week and with smaller more focused entries dealing with thoughts and issues. i make this commitment based on my belief that when something is apparently faltering, instead of cutting off energy to it, redouble the energy commited. and so we begin.

holy saturday. i watched judas burn. in the local park, every year, there is a 3 hour easter vigil mass and at the end they hange a large effigy, human sized paper and plastic doll, in the image of judas from a tree, stuffed with small firecrackers, and light him on fire. i'm not sure why. maybe as if, somehow by burning the "betrayer" we no longer associate ourselves with him... a source of purification for easter. it just felt all wrong to me. exploding and burning what looked like a man and was said to be judas, a good friend of jesus, even if, like almost all of us, he betrayed jesus for a little money... but how often do all of us support and prosper from economic and social structures as we allow and encourage the suffering and death of so many people. maybe the burning of judas is a symbol for the nicaraguan people to cast off the ways in which they still benefit from injustice, to recommit themselves to the people and community around them, and not to bags of silver. i hope so. but as we walked away, watching his head still drip flaming drops of plastic, it wondered... what does this really teach the children running around, fascinated by a hung, burning man?

james