Palm Sunday is one of my favorite Sundays, right after Easter Sunday. I love it because it is a celebration and it child-friendly. I have memories of the church I attended in college with its long sanctuary and walls like the inside of a pearl, bright, white, and clean. The children would parade down the aisles waving palm fronds. It was wonderful.

Now I have my own children and we put on our own Palm Sunday celebration on our back porch. Before we celebrated we talked about the elements of the story of Palm Sunday: the borrowed colt, the worshippers, the meaningfulness of precious clothes laid on the ground for a king. It is a beautiful story with a hard and merciless ellipsis. Between events celebrated on Palm Sunday and the following Sunday lie the darkest days of human history.

What we do with those days matters. Do we see why they are dark? Do we see our own selves in the story? I am the worshipper who flees, I am the soldiers gambling for the seamless clothes of a Savior. In fact, I am all the characters in the story except the figure on the central cross. That is a job he has taken from me, a death, a punishment I will not have to face. God sparing me at the ultimate cost to himself.

I think we should remember those clothes -clothes laid down, clothes taken as the Son of God dies alone. These are my clothes-no matter how precious the robe of human consolation, gift or love it is appropriate to lay it down on the path of a suffering Savior, not just a shining Christ.

You wish you could shout out to the crowd-be there for this man, Jesus on Thursday in his loneliness and betrayal, turn back your jeers on Friday during his lonely death, worship in awe and grief and gratitude as he alone dies for us all.

Revealed such a terrible record of abuse that I don’t have the heart to recount her ordeal.  Look it up.  Read her memoir.  Wikipedia it.  I can’t bear to think about 1.  what she went through and 2.  that multiple members of her family have defended her attacker, her own biological father.

This month is taking its toll on me. 

Please.  If you read this pray for Mackenzie. . She deserves to be believed.

When I told the kids what I was doing for April to raise awareness about the prevalence and danger of sexual assault, esp. child sexual assault, Saskia asked, are you going to write about me?

She is the reason I write, and not just because her innocence was viciously stolen by her adopted brother.  Not just because at five she was already a rape victim in her own home.  No.  I write about S. because she is the one who gave me the permission to do so.

We were driving down the road one night and listening to NPR.  A writer was discussing being raped as a child by a neighbor.  She descibed herself as a survivor of sexual abuse.  S. said, like me!  When she said this and the way she said it I realized that providing community, giving her the knowledge that she was not alone in her story would help her.  I also learned from S. that she would not suffer the same level of shame as many other victims if we chose to be open about the abuse and celebrate her bravery.

She is brave, very brave.

And she has already suffered terribly.  First it was the abuse, then it was the way people encouraged and provided support for her attacker while ignoring her.  Literally ignoring.  Then it was the loneliness.  Our life as a family has  been isolated by other people’s complete prejudice towards abuse victims.

Saskia is courageous and she is one precious reason to keep going even when I am exhausted and want to quit.  Especially when I am exhausted and want to quit.

I love you precious daughter.  I love you so much.

I wish I could give you back all that was stolen.

I really should title this post, whatchoo talkin’ bout willis?  That is a defining quote for my generation and I do remember the safety of Different Strokes, the hint of cultural community–what I would now call parasocial relationships thanks to Teenage Paparazzo.

Todd Bridges was molested by a family friend when he was 11 and 12 and his life went spiralling out of control as a direct result.  I do believe that he could have made lots and lots of better choices, but I respond to his pain.

His mother believed his story, his father did not.  He suffered emotionally from what happened to him and used drugs to mute the pain.

I do not think the perpetrator faced any consequences.  He should have.

Whatever Mr. Bridges should have done differently, he is absolutely doing the right thing by telling his story.

Thank you Willis

Jonathan Franzen is a pretty articulate writer, avid bird watcher, and self-described atheist.  Only I don’t believe in him.  I think he does have gods.  I don’t know what exactly they are but I would put my money on something related to vanity, power, or pride,  something related to control and autonomy, and something related to sexuality or pleasure.

You are right to question how I could dare these broad assumptions.  I dare them because these are the general categories for human idolatry.  In fact these are the gods most often being lugged into Christian churches each week.  Humans need their gods, and you fellas are no different.

If you were genuine atheists you would do one of two or three things–

1.  lie prostrate, moan quietly and hope all the time that the random force of gravity did not fail you, no God, no constant force of gravity (sorry, but it is true)

2.  pluck live chickens and starve the Ukraine  (you would still have  your petty little gods, but your quest for power would fuel the inconsistencies…)

3.  genuinely feel sorry for us faith based folk.  Really guys, it is your grumpy protests against “God” that always give you away.  It isn’t that He isnt there, it is that you live with a deep and abiding desire to avoid His personality.  And that is the last thing I would like to say…

That is the sticky wicket, the saccharine misunderstanding, if you will.  I give you credit for not co-opting a fictious belief system and using it to snooker unsuspecting maidens, but what if you are wrong about Him?

What if the simple fact that Christians are generally lousy reflections of Christ and that you have never looked God’s reality, presence, personality, sense of humor, or overwhelming love in the face is actually robbing you of a relationship with a Guy who if you faced Him directly you would find to be incredibly smart (omniscient), incredibly strong (omnipotent), and even-handed enough to allow you to muck about and waste your life without Him?

What if Heaven isnt syrupy sweet?  What if it is the toughest, smartest, most brilliant light in an undying sky;  you opt out just because you have a prejudice against guys named Hey-Soos?

Hm.  I wrote two really rousing essays for the Yahoo! Contributors Network but the system has been gummed up.  I feel like the general idea probably should be talked about, in plain words if my other ones are not available.

I don’t “celebrate” halloween.  I tell my kids it is the celebration of death without hope, death without God who saves us.  If I did “celebrate”  this idea it would be now–in the quiet, intensely dark time between Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.

It scares me to know how utterly flattened the disciples must have been.  What was the point?  What had happened?  Why?  The meticulous record of Jesus’ instructions tells us He warned them, prepared them, strengthened them.  He gave them a map.  Still the shadow of His death would have been like waiting at the bedside of a drowning victim.  We pray relentlessly for life and fear the worst.

What would have happened to us all if He had not died for us?

What would have happened to us all if He had not risen from the dead?

Plain words, simple words, but in them is every vigil in history, every gnawing doubt.

Sunday.  Rise. Again.

Leonard wrote about being sexually abused by an olympic trainer when he was a teenager.  After years of battling this secret alone, he has spoken out.  I am grateful for his courage and believe his openness will ultimately help others.  I think it is especially difficult for men and boys to confront abuse because of the stigma attached to the issue of same gender sexual abuse of boys.

Just as with female victims, male victims of sexual assault are not more prone to become offenders nor is there a reliable connection between sexual abuse and gender attraction/preferences. These are just two unsustainable mythologies bred in the utter absence of reliable data.  Too many victims never speak out for us to have any way of knowing what their private struggles are.  That is why I am so grateful for Sugar Ray and others who do speak out.

I also do believe that the silence and isolation caused by stigmatizing the victims of abuse ends up causing tremendous harm.  Sugar Ray has been courageous about discussing the emotional problems created first by the abuse and then by years of silence.

Help break the silence.

Thank you, Sugar Ray Leonard

Last night something miraculous happened.  Our baby learned his first word.

M was holding him in her arms talking to him about signs.  As we discussed ASL signing and gestures earlier babies had used we realized he already had a sign for come here!— a chubby little hand beckoning.  It is a powerful first word and is usually accompanied by a joyful smile.

We practiced the word over and over.  It was a mitzva. I love words and so am particularly gratified to see them hold power in the mind of a small child.  A small beautiful boy.

But it also reminded me of another little boy, one who did not have the same early experience of the joyfulness of words.  This little baby was still struggling with words when I met him at almost 3 years of age.  By all reports he had not felt or received much security or attention, placeholders for love.

My whole life with Sea I wished I could undo this early neglect from a time before I knew him.  I grieve for him and grieve for the damaged that ensued.

We all must know that we are seen, loved, valued and that can happen in a single Word.

John 1:1

(shibboleth rocks, boys)

Confession:  there are monkeys that know more than I do about blogging and the internet

Accolade:  Margaret you rock!!!