Today ends what many faith traditions refer to as Holy Week. I love all the symbolism that this week holds, and how it offers so many pieces that relate to our daily lives. For example, when I look at Easter, I often think about the journey of living your truth.
Jesus comes into the city on Palm Sunday, the community is overjoyed, praise him for what they see as the king who has come to save them. The week goes by, things don’t work as everyone had expected, and by Friday, the one who was deemed as a savior showered with love is now the inspiration for hate and persecution.
Our truth can be the same way. Lets take for instance, those who get married; the day of the wedding is full of joy, celebration, a metaphorical Palm Sunday. –Life happens: job loss, ailing parents, kids, and a host of new challenges, that turn the metaphorical week of celebration, into a space of hardship and adversity. –You move from a space of Palm Sunday, to your own cross to bear on Friday.
What hope we can take from both the story of Jesus and our own lies, is Easter. The Sunday after the week of difficulties came the birth of something new. A greater manifestation than what was there the week before. In the story of the marriage, yes life brings about hardship, but through that storm, comes a stronger commitment, an ability to see promise and possibility that may not have been there before, and a space to open up deeper ways of being.
Our truth moves in the same way, the path is not always set with the guarantee to be easy…if your truth is medical school, you will have your own Palm Sunday (your acceptance into a medical program), but in the same way as Jesus, you will have your own difficulties and persecution: course work, qualifying exams, residency, etc., but like all things that are generated through truth, the promise of Easter, that season of new beginning is guaranteed on the other side of our own metaphorical Holy Week, that is, if we have the ability to harness faith, cultivate hope, and the courage to persevere.
Cheers,
DP