Post #28 of 40
Giving Up Palm Sunday
*In all my blog posts, I have changed the names of almost anyone other than family. I have continued to change examples and details - sometimes because I can’t remember them exactly as they occurred, sometimes to condense a storyline, and most of the time to protect the anonymity of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who didn’t sign up to be in my blog. In this particular post, I have provided examples of grieving folks, but I want to be super clear and emphasize that they do not represent the names of the people or the specific circumstances of the participants that Aruni and I worked with during the Grief workshop at Kripalu. I am bound by an agreement of confidentiality, and I honor this completely.
Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and I woke up on the bottom bunk in a dorm at Kripalu. No church service for me. I was working - assisting Aruni, a wise Jewish woman, in a program called Grief, Loss, and Renewal. I carefully crawled out from the bottom bunk trying not to catch my hair in the metal chain holding up the top mattress. The Hosanna song from Jesus Christ Superstar started whirling around in my head. The tune continued to make its presence known to me throughout the morning workshop and on the four-hour drive home, which is usually two.
I hesitated answering when asked to assist Aruni the weekend of Palm Sunday, but it had been almost six months since my last time to work at Kripalu. I am grateful to have been asked to assist Aruni multiple times over the last two years, and I know I am healthier and happier, in large part to her and Kripalu.
Palm Sunday or The Sunday of the Passion is the time when we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The crowd waved palms and joyfully sang out, “Hosanna!” about 2000 years ago.
At Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, where we were members for twenty years, dozens of children processed waving the palms as we all sang, “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” I remember such joy on those Sundays, but mostly I remember the ministers admonishing us to come to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services because Easter would have no meaning if we went from the happy ride into Jerusalem to the joyful risen Lord.
Palm Sunday services, these days, end on a sadder note. Maybe they always have, and I am just now noticing, or maybe various churches and regions approach the day differently. Yes, they start with the joyful entrance of Jesus, but by the end of the hour, we know what is coming - the death of Jesus on a cross.
This year, as I continue life as a card-carrying Episcopalian and self-proclaimed church lady, I noted the Rector’s Epistles and listened to sermons and announcements encouraging folks to take part in Holy Week.
Mark+ at St. Martin’s explained it this way:
Liturgical Christianity commemorates Easter as a continuous drama in distinct acts. Act 1 concerns Jesus’ preparation for his death. Act 2 is his death. Act 3 concerns God’s doing of a new thing by raising Jesus to a new and transformed life – not as an isolated event but as the first fruits of a new stage in the restoration of all of creation.
Mark+ concludes by saying that we would not skip Acts I (Maundy Thursday) and II (Good Friday) of a Shakespeare play and arrive simply for Act III (Easter).
I have never heard a priest or minister remind us to be sure and be present for the attention-getting overture that Palm Sunday represents in this way of thinking. Everyone wants to be there for those fun parts, and yet, I wasn’t. I missed Jesus’ joyful entrance into Jerusalem, and I will go immediately into the preparation for Jesus’ death and his dying.
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At about 11am on Sunday, the time that the Palm Sunday service at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church and the Grief, Loss, and Recovery program at Kripalu were concluding, I noticed that I started feeling better about choosing to help at this workshop instead of being at church. I had felt guilty for missing the service, for having to find substitutes to teach church school, and for not taking pictures of the procession with the palms for the social media posts and e-news that I create each week.
As I stacked chairs, put away Kleenex boxes, gave hugs, and graciously accepted the program participants’ and Aruni’s thanks, I began thinking about what I had been doing over the weekend in a different light.
Assisting Aruni in this program allowed me to help folks who are stuck in Acts I and II. The program participants are living and reliving versions of last times, not unlike the Last Supper of Maundy Thursday. They are sad about the dying and death of their loved ones the way we think of Jesus on the cross on Good Friday.
Carol is remembering the last lunch she had with her husband, and Barb is remembering the trial before her son went to prison and then died of COVID. The picture of a tube- and monitor-enveloped five-year-old is what Frank has in his head, and Irene is still trying to figure out what she could have done to prevent her son’s overdose after he’d been clean for six years.
I missed out on celebrating the Palm Sunday of my tradition, of my religion. I missed out on the triumphal entry, the attention-getting overture, but maybe, just maybe the small part that I played in assisting these grieving folks will allow them to someday see that the play will continue past Act II.