The Best Friday
Today is called Good Friday.
For the dimestore fundamentalist and the high church liturgist, this is the day for Christian sadness, for wailing at the memory of a brutal execution by cruxification done nearly two thousand years ago.
For the Shintoist or even the Fruit of Islam, today must seem to be a day that is owned and operated by the followers of Jesus Christ.
But as I read the Christian Gospel, this is not—nor should not be—the case.
The message of Good Friday is hardly sad, hardly pertinent to just Christian men. Instead, the message of this day is for all men, regardless of religious belief.
It was on this day, two thousand or so years ago, in the city of Jerusalem, that a man decided to follow the dictates of his own conscience, to stand against the crowd, to be tortured and killed for an intangible philosophy.
That man, Jesus of Nazareth, knew the law, knew the custom, knew the people of his time.
He had spent much of his life in protest, but his protest was a gentle one, carried on not by riot nor even egg-throwing, but by reason, by temperance, by inner strength.
At a certain point, however, the man Jesus realized that his protest—if it were to be legitimate—must take a more pronounced course. That course was death.
There is always sadness in death. But the very act of dying, or suffering, can be a most happy occasion. It is happy when it is the towering victory of the single man against the overwhelming forces of wordly things.
The death of Jesus Christ on Good Friday was such a happy occasion. Here was a nonconformist, a rebel, who eluded the vulgarity of pseudo-martyrdom and human frailty for the sake of principle.
Perhaps for that reason, this Friday is Good Friday. And perhaps, it is the best Friday ever.
Dan Austin
The people say—
To the Editor:
Knowing how important it is to the students of our University to pick at, tear apart, criticize and finally condemn nearly anything anyone does, says or wishes. I give you the following morsel which is a clipping from my hometown newspaper:
All in the community who are concerned and wish to
A special time is being set aside Tuesday evening, March 14, to pray for rain. This meeting will be held in the Assembly of God Church at 424 North Market.
pray are welcome. The time of prayer will be informal and will begin at 7:30 and conclude at 9:30 p.m.
"The prolonged drouth with its threatening serious consequences is such to move us to this time of prayer," a spokesman stated.
The announcement was apparently so unusual and astonishing that the following day the Wichita Eagle ran the story on its first page. The next time my hometown paper came out, it reported that two correspondents from Time magazine, who were in town
to report on the drought situation, had asked about the story and even took pictures of the Church.
As of yet there has been no rain in Caldwell. I did notice this evening after the game (Saturday) that there was sleet falling here in Lawrence. Caldwell is some 200 miles south of Lawrence, so I hardly know what has happened there, if anything. But if anything such as rain does occur soon in Caldwell, I shall inform our hungry student body.
"What's For Real?"
I am not a member of any conservative religious group and hardly have any conservative ideas. I am presenting this so that the students can laugh, think "how farmer, ridiculous and weird the people are in Caldwell. But I wonder, which is more weird, the ones who are praying or the ones who are "shocked?"
Serving KU for 77 of its 101 Years
KANSAN TELEPHONE NUMBERS Newsroom—UN 4-3646 Business Office—UN 4-3198
The Daily Kansan, student newspaper at The University of Kansas, is represented by National Advertising Service. 18 East 50 St, New York, N.Y. 10022. Mail subscription rates: $5 a semester or $9 a year Published with second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the United States except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays and examination periods. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised in the University Daily Kansan are offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin.
The opinions expressed in the editorial column are those of the students whose names are signed to them. Guest editorial views are not necessary editor's. Any opinions expressed in the Daily Kansan are not necessarily those of The University of Kansas Administration or the State Board of Regents.
Alan Reeder Caldwell freshman
2
Daily Kansan
editorial page Friday, March 24, 1967
NEW BOOKS
ATOMIC DIPLOMACY: HIROSHIMA AND POTSDAM, by Gar Alperovitz (Vintage, $2.45)—A history that carries the reader back to that summer of 1945 when the war was coming to an end and a new age was dawning. The author has leaned on the work of other historians and that of diplomats themselves to provide this history, particularly the unpublished diary of Henry L. Stimson. Basically he has tried to find the best evidence of the March-August 1945 period to describe the diplomacy of the beginning of the cold war.
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FEIFFER
SINGLEMAN WHO
WITH THE AID OF HIS
SECRET COLLECTION
OF GIRLIE PHOTOS
AND NEFARIOUS
PAPERBACKS, REGAINS
HIS WEAKENING
HOLD ON YOUTH,
MANHOOD AND UN-
STRUCTURED PASSION!
B
re
A mitt Bui new