We did not have a procession at the 11:00 Service at St. Christopher’s today. I have mixed feelings about that. A proper procession, beginning outdoors some distance away and moving toward the Church is really nice if you can do it. OTOH, in some places they just have a procession that marches around within the church. So you expend a lot of time and energy going nowhere. An uncomfortably accurate metaphor for much current church activity. Better to forget the whole thing.

Despite that, it was a good event. The Holy Week services are very old, and still have a spine-tingling, terrifying quality that has survived decades of liturgical revisionism. They are the heart of Christian worship.

Palm Sunday is quite contradictory. In a few minutes the liturgy goes from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem to the Crucifixion. The crowds who shouted “Hosanna!” on Sunday shouted “Crucify him!” on Friday. For the liturgical junkie it is the ultimate mixture of uppers and downers.

Too bad. Life is messy and contradictory. We cannot find neat explanations for everything, especially where really important issues are concerned. Liturgy should reflect this fully, and not try to rationalize it away. Good for Palm Sunday!

With Tom at respite this weekend we were able to stay for some of coffee hour and had a chance to talk with Fr. Michael. No problem issues–we talked for a while about the Episcopal Church scene in Evanston, and about some theological reading he had been doing. It was good. It has been a long time since I had a chat like that.