Well, That Was Jolly!

Part of my ministry is teaching. Today I taught Christians how to express themselves creatively. It didn't involve liturgy (hard to comprehend, I know), and it didn't involve prayer as we know it. This act of blessed creativity brought with it a panoply, nay a plethora of Epiphany moments  in the context of the our discussion about the relative merits of arachnids. 

It is fair to say that there was outer and inner cursing. There was modesty and self-reproach. There was some appetite to mechanise. There was considerable example setting, and yes - even the questions about the merit of the creativity in focus were heard.

But we made 200 Palm Crosses and God will see that they are good. 

I was taught how to make a Palm Cross when I was a sprog and I have even had the opportunity to teach the kids to do it (which they managed, remarkably quickly I might add). But a dozen Christians sat together in the beautiful spring sunlight that floods through our Victorian stained-glass, chatted and fashioned these little worship-devices. 

Yes, you can pay through the nose and buy them in pre-made. They look the business, all uniform, all neat and tidy. Ours have character and ours now have a far greater meaning to us. They are the work of our hands, some not as nimble as others. 

To me, moments like these are a precious gift. They are an opportunity to put aside a couple of hours with a purpose and with others (so as not to feel guilty for stopping). They are moments when people who might otherwise have sat alone at home have now sat with friends in their church when only a year ago it was firmly bolted shut. They all learned something new, and the glee that they expressed when they 'got it' was a joy to behold. I now have a dozen flock-members who can (and should) teach others this noble art next year. Saturday is posy-making for Mothering Sunday (you will notice that I got it right that time). Coming together to be and do - perfect. 

Pre-made palm crosses? Why would you!

And the pictures are amusing too, but that is a matter for us - not you!

Palm Sunday and Britney Spears

Today is Palm Sunday, this slightly anomalous blip of joyousness in the midst of Lent and Passiontide. Of course, those of us who creep around churches habitually will know that Palm Sunday recalls the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Such is the joy of that occasion that we will hobble around our grounds nursing our newly blessed palm crosses whilst singing 'Ride on Ride on In Majesty' at seven different speeds, losing a verse between the front and back of the procession. It's tradition. It must be done.

The story of Palm Sunday has the implicit taunt of 'how the mighty will fall', and the uncomfortable semi-presence of unseen pedestals upon which we will place the soon-to-be-slain. Of course, we read the Gospel and we inwardly judge the perpetrators, knowing of course that we would never do the same. Oh no, not us, m'lud. 

Palm Sunday, for me, has taken on the tint of modern society and its ways, and dear old Britney Spears seemed always to be the poster girl for that tendency. I have never bought or owned one of her records, have no real desire to either. However, the fortunes of this young woman have always troubled me. She is no saint, and maybe even errs in the opposite direction at times. But we all do. I have to say too, that her fall from grace was painful and upsetting to behold. 

The tendency to which I refer is this psychopathy in all of us to raise people up so that we can enjoy the blood-sport of seeing them fall. Oh how we love to watch people fall into disrepute. Britney Spears, Billie Piper, Charlotte Church, Drew Barrymore, and many others - all relative kids who became idols in one moment, and the meat for the next press sandwich the next. In these cases, it was more to do with too much too young - but we have all enjoyed the parades of their retribution. This picture of Ms Spears summed it all up for me; a talented kid who had lost her way and the world itching to see her fall. Fall she did, watch we did. We bought the press editions too, watching our tellies tutting. 

Palm Sunday feels a little like that for me these days. Those who will eventually crucify the Bethlehemite carpenter will be guilty of not understanding what is really going on with Jesus. They were the ones who were so ready to elevate him to such celebrity in one moment only to haul him down the next. We in our third millennium churches will preach and heap curses upon the Jews of Jerusalem of the fourth decade - mere moments before we return to our newsprint and our internets to bay for the blood of the next hapless celebrity (or, in a fit of decency look away because it has nothing to do with us, of course).