Nonaligned faith and practice in the present
Nothing convicts me in my heart more than the contemplation of Jesus as a historical person.
All my decades of wrestling with spiritual paths and theologies are self-indulgence, compared with the blessèdness and horror of that man’s life. Every day’s news is full of the brutality and painful neediness of humankind. That Jesus walked compassionately into the midst of it all is reason enough to follow him—and to be dismayed whenever I fall short of doing so.
…I’ve been pondering the significance of the “Palm Sunday” story, and it was in my thoughts during Quaker meeting for worship this morning.
The earliest surviving version of the story is in the Gospel of Mark, written around 66-70 C.E., possibly in Syria, and excerpted here from The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 1994, pp. 39-40):
…When they get close to Jerusalem, near Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sends
