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But the memory which has come to me is the reality that I have
had four significant intimate loves in my life. I am not sure how to categorize
them except to say in each case I was willing to pledge myself to each of them.
Two actually came to "marriage," a willing life commitment on both our parts.
One of those ended this description of who we are to each other. Two did not
come to this commitment. Yet all remain a part of me. I suppose this journey
in love is not so different from others. What I wonder about is the fact that I
still carry all four within me. I hold them all differently, but from time to
time each reappears to be valued, touched, wondered about. Very often I feel
passive when they come to visit with the exception of my now marriage.
Sometimes I wonder about what might have been. Yet no longer am I nostalgic, as
if any one would be better than the other. They just are each a part of me and
each taught me lessons worthy of a life time. Each has asked me to forgive
something. Each I am sure has forgiven me something. I do not think I am
unusual in this reflection except perhaps in my willingness to both forgive and
accept distant forgiveness, to assume it to be.
What does any of this have to do with Palm Sunday? Palm
Sunday is a conflated day. There is the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, this
celebration of something wondrous about to be fulfilled, the possible Messiah of
prophetic hope appearing on the spiritual landscape of a hopeful people, Israel.
We are adopted into this hope. And then the shift to the reading of the passion
narrative of this same person's betrayal, arrest, trial, sentencing, and
crucifixion. There is some note of burial affirming death. Without this piece
Easter and Resurrection lose meaning. If this is not enough conflation, the
Morning Prayer lesson is that of the purging and cleansing of the Temple, an
event that occurs between to other lessons.
And here is what occurs to me this year. There is a movement
from active to passive in these lessons. In some sense Jesus sets himself up
for the entry. He indicates where the Donkey is to be found and off they go. In
the Temple he does a cleansing that is more than an angry outburst. It is a
prophetic action asking all to recall the purity of intent worship, a house of
focused prayer for all people.
Then it is a yielding. Jesus is "handed over" in the garden by
Judas, by God. His speech is more measured, less instructive, sparing. He
justifies little. He is yielding. Henri Nouwen suggests that this is the heart
of the Passion. Jesus goes from prime actor to recipient of others' actions.
In here is a choice to follow as a disciple or turn away in the crowd of life.
God also is active. When Jesus gets to "it is finished" more than a human drama
has taken place. Jesus has allowed much to be done to him after his long years
of doing and teaching. Men have done things to Jesus and under it God has done
things to Jesus. Some drama of eternal forgiveness has been playing its
hand.
And we are for now not active. We are the
passive participants of forgiveness like some deeply loving relationship filled
with hope, one that might not have been so successful from our view of control
and hope.
To me it is like aging and knowing what might have been if
only I was more attuned, or perhaps another was more attuned. I am asked now to
forgive the things I missed or did. I am asked to accept forgiveness from another, from the
heart of the Universe, from God. I am asked to assume it to be. I am passive
except in my willingness to yield and to treasure the gift. From here I now live. We all do.
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