Evening sun

We are having a mini vacation this unusual early Easter. We have this Good Friday as well as Easter Monday off...this is a much needed break.

We went on a drive to Jayapura today to find some artifacts to buy and visit the city again. While we were there I saw an Easter procession through the street replete with the whole cast of characters. It was between the the noon hour prayer call and the three o'clock prayer call and I wondered if they worked out a schedule.

I heard the prayer calls again as I enjoyed this evening sun...it seems to go together. These prayer interruptions are part of the routine of the day, a way to figure out what time it is without looking at my watch. I am not upset anymore with the sound..I know which mosque has better callers and which one runs a bit behind the others.

As we were buying our artifacts today we we returning back to the car as the mosque near by emptied from the noon prayer. It was a bit disconcerting to walk among the men with their prayer mats slung over their shoulder...as soft as their prayer calls are in the fading light, there was nothing soft in the looks of these committed men. Two expressions of commitment on this Good Friday... a pageant of strange looking people walking down the road and a consistent dedication of commit ed men. Somehow..I would feel better if the expression of our faith was a bit different. We maybe need more consistent commitment rather then colorful pageantry...but at the same time the story behind the foolish pageantry is freedom and the consistent dogged commitment brings death. This is the conundrum here in Papua as these two faiths live side by side... I can only hope that the prayer calls are the only interruptions to the peaceful evening sun.