Good Friday and the Experience of Crucifixion

One would think crucifixion would become easier each time, that one could perfect it like an art – surrendering to suffering with the skilled internal acrobatics of a saint, sinking into despair with fearless free-fall, embracing and shining through shame like an eternal child of the Light.  At the least, one might hope that each psychic death would at least follow the same generalized flow.  

Yet would it really be surrender if we mastered how to do it and knew exactly how it would go? Would it really be crucifixion if there wasn’t some resistance to it, if we didn’t beg and plead, why has God forsaken me?  

I remember an ex-girlfriend who had mixed feelings about my mystical proclivities, especially the understanding of the Cross as an experiential gateway from suffering to healing. “I’m not really on the same page,” she said, “I think Jesus got crucified so we don’t have to be.”   It was a lovely sentiment of divine mercy.

I wish it were true.