Palm Sunday Poetry

While I didn't write any poems yesterday, I did come up with ideas for poems.  On Saturday, I had been reading blog posts, looking for inspiration.  I came across an idea from last Easter, writing about the empty tomb, writing in the voice of the empty tomb.

Yesterday, as I drove my car full of palms to the church to decorate before the first service, I watched the sun rise which made the tall buildings full of glass look a bit crumpled.  I listened to On Being--a great interview with Parker Palmer about depression, and the difference between depression and suffering:   "I do not believe that the God who gave me life wants me to live a living death. I believe that the God who gave me life wants me to live life fully and well. Now, is that going to take me to places where I suffer because I am standing for something or I am committed to something or I am passionate about something that gets resisted and rejected by the society? Absolutely. But anyone who’s ever suffered that way knows that it’s a life-giving way to suffer; that if it’s your truth, you can’t not do it, and that knowledge carries you through. But there’s another kind of suffering that is simply and purely death. It’s death in life. And that is a darkness to be worked through, to find the life on the other side."

Later, as I showered to get ready for church, I thought about that tomb, how it was more likely a cave.  I thought about cave-like spaces, caverns which are like wombs.  I thought about the manger and Mary and Joseph, and how the stable was more likely a cave than a barn.  I thought about caves where bandits hide.

Our interactive service at 9:45 is celebrating Lent with the poetry of Mary Oliver.  Yesterday we read "The Poet Thinks of the Donkey," which tells the Palm Sunday story through the eyes of the donkey.  I was struck by this stanza:

Never had he seen such crowds!

And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.

Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

Later this week, I will write that poem about the empty tomb, which also is small, dark, and obedient.  I am grateful for a Palm Sunday that includes poetry.

This week-end felt a bit hectic to me, with our week-end house guest and all the extra work that entails, on top of a Palm Sunday jam packed with activities: I participated in the life of the church in all sorts of ways yesterday:  reading, anointing with oil, handchime practice, helping count the money, and clean up.  But my half hour of contemplation during the laying down of the palms (sounds better than decorating) was my favorite part of the day--totally unanticipated and restorative.