I remember a time when I was standing in line at a sizable department store waiting to return /exchange a gift that didn’t fit. A woman behind me smiled at me and said: “My dear, the meek shall inherit the world.” I felt a flash of anger, imagining myself to be a weak wimp, without the guts to shove and push or curse.
When I got home I looked up “meek” and discovered it meant “quiet, gentle, submissive”!! Wow, no way did I want to be meek! But Jesus blessed the meek, didn’t he? I might inherit the earth. I took my returnable item home and donated it to the parish church fair for the “white elephant” table. Wait! Elephants are huge, fierce only when necessary, faithful to their pack, and protective of their young—meekly powerful or powerfully meek!
I left the line, went home, wept, and found a therapist who offered bioenergetic therapy. There I met my body and ALL its muscles, some weak and some strong—inner armor, forever meek AND blessed.
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Life is full of varying muscles, varieties of prayers and hopes and fears. On this Sunday, called Palm we Christians re-enact the dramatic biblical story of Jesus’s journey into Jerusalem to confront Rome’s antisemitism while crowds follow waving palms.
We all knew how this bold confrontation turned out. BUT in the meantime we brandished our palms to wave in a parade. Boys turned palms into spears to fight duels. Others saved palms to create palm crosses. Clergy saved some palms to burn to make ashes to anoint our foreheads next Ash Wednesday.
One lone palm remained lying in the center aisle—all alone. I picked it up and gave it a kiss of hope, also kissing the palms of my own hands—open and ready.
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Hope, Pope Francis tells us, “means believing that history does not end with our mistakes, our violence and injustice, or the sin that crucifies Love.”
