Palm Sunday in Mom's Backyard

Today is the first Palm Sunday that I have not worshiped in a church for almost forty years. My lack of transportation is affecting me more and more, as well as my isolation here at my mother's home. If I were at my own house, I would be within walking distance of five churches.

The good news is that I spoke with the Pension Boards of the United Church of Christ last Friday and someone there has cut the red tape of bureaucracy so that my first annuity payment will be issued in the middle of this month (April) and not in May as I had been previously informed. God does provide to those who cry out in need (See Exodus 3:7-9).

With Alex safe at Janel's house, the hoops through which I've had to jump for Veterans Administration medical benefits, pension, and application for Social Security, this weekend I have centered exclusively on my spiritual needs. Is it a coincidence that my "dark night of the soul" began on the first Monday or Lent and the light is beginning to shine as Holy Week begins?

This morning, with no worship service to lead or attend, I spent time in study and prayer. Then I went outside to walk and meditate. As I turned the corner of my mother's house and walked in to the backyard, I was greeted with a sight that reminded me of a Monet painting:


Yesterday that purple (properly liturgically termed as violet) color was not in the yard: the blooms appeared over night, as if the royal color and Christian liturgical color symbolizing penance and expiation, of Christ's kingship and Lent, appeared to proclaim the end of darkness and that light and faith are returning to the world in which I dwell.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1)

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access by faith to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we let us also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5)