Cruelty in lovely Easter days

Merijn had acquired tickets for the Matthaeus Passion on Good Friday evening in the Anton Philips hall in The Hague, facing our appartment. Two hits in one blow: visiting this famous concert hall in our own backyard and experiencing this famous piece of music, check in the boxes. At 6:30 pm we discovered that the concert would start at 7pm: panic. Without a meal we found our seats just in time in the midst of an already occupied row. In the music there were some very impressing parts that convincingly communicated an atmosphere. These were mainly the parts where the choir sang. The aria soli and the narrative soli probably were very well executed and may be necessary for the story, but as for me, they could be left out. Maybe the setting of a church might contribute to the piece for the better. I'm glad I now know what it is, and the story refreshed my memory of the Easter history. The next evening we watched Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". The film is a challenge for sensitive minds as an unsurpassed cruelty unfolds in a two hour impression of Jesus' way of the Cross. Nevertheless, I was inspired by the superior ethics of Jesus. I wish that those who are religious focus more on practicing the ethics, and adopt a more liberal approach of the technocratic rules and rituals. So yes, after these two experiences and the double-visit to Merijn's parents and my own on Sunday, I've had my share of Easter. Just to be sure of that, I gave in to my chocoholism wherever I came across chocolate eggs. Saturday I decided to try and run a short distance, as it had been six days since the marathon. In the first two days following the marathon I crippled around like a rusty machine requiring a complete overhaul, especially lubrication. The soreness in my legs confirmed that I indeed had tried my best in the race, so nothing wrong with that. In the next days it quickly improved and this Saturday I felt ready for a first run, 25 relaxed minutes, through the Haagse Bos. The first steps revealed remains of physical damage in my calf and thy above the knee, but the exercise was relaxing. However, back home, as soon as I sat down, my legs felt like I had been running really hard for two hours or so! What a strange sensation. Clearly, the books are right again; I should take it easy, take time to recover. Fortunately, yesterday, after I ran some 38 minutes together with Merijn, this sense of fatigue didn't show up, so we're on the way back. In the TV show Buitenhof, on Sunday, the subject of increase of management staff in organisations and its effect on those who do the work came back (see my post of two weeks ago). It's finding its way to the agenda of the public and political debate. To start, just for the sake of catalysing a shift in mindset, what if we just swap the organisation charts up-side-down? To show the workers at the top, being the attractive leaves on a tree, supported and linked by the management and, at the bottom, the director or CEO carrying the complete load of the primary process in the leaves.