I understand that nowadays in college classes, syllabi include trigger warnings on the dates    challenging topics will be addressed.  Golly gee, I think one of the reasons I went to college so many years ago was so I would be challenged to focus on issues that are not all about rainbows and butterflies. We didn’t get a pass to skip class on the day that Antigone was being discussed.  We didn’t get expunged versions of Mark Twain or Harper Lee.

This is Holy Week.  Yesterday in church, we heard our rector refer to an essay she had written pointing out that  blaming  Jewish people for the events we commemorate this week is just wrong and they must be understood in a new light.  Absolutely.

Then she went on to comfort us that focusing on the events of Holy Week might be too painful for some, and, if so, she understands that some parishioners might want to absent themselves and their children from services this week. It was a trigger warning.

That was kind and sensitive on her part.  And we certainly understand that most of what we commemorate this week is traditional and not factual.  I am thinking in particular of the Stations of the Cross.

This kind of over-the-top “art”  is abominable on a number of levels.  It does nothing for my faith.  I much prefer to see a bare cross, adorned with flowers for Easter, symbolizing victory and not defeat and horror.

This next bit comes from the little girl who always got perfect-attendance awards for Sunday School.  I certainly no longer adhere to the childish lessons that were taught there.  Nevertheless, so much of what I learned in the Christian culture I grew up in serves me well to this day.

At this moment, what comes to mind is,”Could you not watch with me one hour?” before going out to hunt eggs and eat chocolate?

What POTUS did with Stormy was not an affair.  It certainly was not what we used to call a love affair.

He saw her augmented breasts and got someone to arrange a hookup for him.  I don’t know how many times they hooked up, but I know it was not a meaningful, passionate relationship by any stretch of the imagination.  The thought of it makes me cringe.  The thought of him having sex with anyone makes me cringe.

When I think of real love affairs, I do not cringe.  I smile.  Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini.  Gerturde Stein and Alice B. Toklas.

Personally, I knew a woman whose husband flirted with anyone and everyone except his beautiful wife for whom he showed little interest.  She had a love affair  for years with a charming, brilliant, affectionate man in their milieu.  Her husband never even noticed and thought her lover was a friend of his.    I sort of hope FLOTUS has someone. Sort of.