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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shortest Day

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.  You've probably heard by now about the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, which should be quite a sight.  Of course, this being 2020, the sky will probably be overcast obscuring this celestial event. But rather than be pessimistic, I will indulge in some optimism, some hope, that we will be able to see what has been dubbed "The Christmas Star" - even though Christmas isn't until the 25th and Jesus was likely born in March.  Still, it's the thought that counts, right?  Advent is all about hopeful anticipation, and we're coming to its glorious conclusion. I choose to welcome Christ with an open heart.  What about you?  Will you join me?  Will you look heavenward, confident that, clouds or no clouds, Our Lord is coming to be with us?
Read more

Stop the Yuletide Madness!

"Felize Navidad," move over. Justin Bieber's singing "Little Drummer Boy." I kid you not. I don't make this stuff up. Really. Just four seconds of the hour's musical wunderkind singing "Little Drummer Boy" this morning made me desperately long for the morning of December 25 and the return to regular programming on the radio. Of course, this may be a sign from above, offering us yet another reason for us to reclaim Advent from the wider culture!
Read more

My Pal Richard Dawkins

The New York Times ran a profile of evolutionary biologist and uber-atheist Richard Dawkins in this morning's Science Times section. Prof. Dawkins, an Oxford don, knows a lot about biology and is a brilliant scientist, but knows squat about religion; his rants against God show an understanding of religion and theology that are as simplistic (and, dare I say, simple-minded) as the approach to science shown by a number of religious and political figures on the right. None of this is news, really. But it is puzzling. Why does somebody like Dawkins abandon any sense of intellectual nuance when discussing something of which he disapproves? Surely he can do better than his standard "religion is the source of all evil" schtick (especially since it was religion, of the Roman Catholic variety to be exact, that invented the enterprise of which he is currently a part). Today's story makes me wish there were compelling religious figures who could command the same level of pres...
Read more