Fad du Jour

Yesterday, while in Boston, I poked my head into a Starbucks on Newbury Street to pick up a cup of tea and the paper.  To get inside, I first had to make my way through a crowd of young women in the teens and twenties who were lined up for most of the length of a city block to get into a boutique.  I should note now that the hour was early, snow showers were falling, and it was cold, giving lie to the notion that spring had arrived.  What, I wondered, could be so compelling to draw so many people out on a raw, wet Saturday morning?  Whatever it was, it mattered to those waiting for the doors to open.

On this Palm Sunday we will read about and sing of a different crowd, the one that has gathered to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem.  We don't know whether many congregated or just a few to offer their praises and songs, but we do know that by the end of the week they will have melted away, just like whatever fad captured the fancy of those young women yesterday (or will grab my attention, or yours, today).  Enthusiasms are often fleeting things, even when they're directed toward the one true source of love, hope, and grace: God.  Fortunately for us, God's commitment to us is anything but a fad, the opposite of ephemeral.  It is real, it is solid, and it is enduring, something for us to hold onto in good times and bad, something for us to think on and pray over during this Holy Week.

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