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2008 International Goan Convention
Toronto, Canada
Early Bird Discount Registration closes March 31, 2008
http://www.2008goanconvention.com/regform_print.html
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ONE SOLITARY LIFE…
By Valmiki Faleiro
Id-e-Milad, Good Friday, Holi ... three significant events of our three
principal religions.
They coincided this year, side by side, as if holding hands. As if underscoring
Gandhi’s
thoughts on different religions being paths to the same object. As if reminding
us, in a
roundabout way, of mindless divisions between man and man on blind grounds of
faith.
Instead of a ‘Sangam’ (confluence) that this year’s coincidence seemed to
highlight.
The strangeness, particularly of Good Friday this year, doesn’t end there.
This Good Friday was the earliest in the calendar any of us will ever see in
our lives.
Only those of age 95+ still in our midst, would have witnessed it this early
just once
before in their lives … in the year they were born or as kids: 1913. Bulk of us
will never
see it again as early as we did in 2008.
An internet forward pointed out that the next time Good Friday will be this
early will be on
March 21, year 2228 – 220 years from now! The next time after that will be on
March 19,
year 2285 – 277 years from now. The date it happened before 1913: March 20,
1818!
Good Friday is observed on the first Friday on, or next after, the first
Paschal full moon
after the Spring Equinox. The paschal moon need not coincide with the
astronomical full
moon. It occurred this year on March 20. This dating is based on the lunar
calendar
Hebrews used to identify the Passover. This is why the Hebrew lunar calendar
moves
around the Gregorian calendar, aka ‘New Style Calendar,’ based on solar dating.
Good Friday is followed by Easter, the most profound celebration of
Christianity. This
Easter Sunday, as has been my practice, let me share some old stuff I had
chanced
across in cyberspace. The authorship is not known. Enjoy the story, nonetheless:
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in yet another village, and worked in a carpenter’s shop until
thirty.
Then as an itinerant preacher, for three years.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He didn't go to college.
He never visited a big city.
He never traveled two hundred miles from his place of his birth.
He did none of the things one usually associates with greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him.
His friends ran away.
He was turned over to enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross, between two thieves.
While dying, the executioners gambled his clothing, his only property on earth.
He was laid in a borrowed grave, when dead.
He is the central figure, even twenty centuries later.
All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the
parliaments that
ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected life
on earth as
much as that One Solitary Life.
The legend of the Dogwood: There is a legend that at the time of the
Crucifixion, the
dogwood had been the size of an oak and other forest trees. So firm and so
strong was
the tree that it was chosen as the timber for the cross. To be used thus for
such a cruel
purpose greatly distressed the tree. Christ, nailed upon it, sensed this. In
gentle pity for
all sorrow and suffering, Jesus said to the dogwood:
"Because of your regret and pity for my suffering, never again shall the
dogwood tree
grow large enough to be used as a cross. Henceforth it shall be slender and
bent and
twisted and its blossoms shall be in the form of a cross ... two long and two
short petals.
At the center of the outer edge of each petal there will be nail prints, brown
with rust and
stained with red, and in the center of the flower there will be a crown of
thorns, and all
who see it shall remember."
Have a glorious Easter, Christians! (ENDS)
The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at:
http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330
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The above article appeared in the March 23, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
