Palm Sunday

(written 15 March 2013, about an experience in April 2011)

A crowd of people had gathered around the school.  They had come from their homes, having swept the dirt courtyard, drawn water from the nearest source, prepared food (purchased in a dusty market or harvested from the field) over a fire in an outdoor kitchen structure, scrubbed clothes by hand and hung it up to dry, fed their babies, bathed their bodies, dressed in their nicest garments.  They wore bright fabrics, headscarves, suits.  Their shoes were polished, no matter how shabby.  Their faces were bright and happy, their dark skin shining.  The air was clear and mild, and quiet, pleasant banter could be heard as children played.  A few people passed out palm fronds that had been gathered earlier streamside or some other nearby place.      

As I joined the cheerful menagerie just a few days before finishing my training and being sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I thought, "This must have been what this same morning felt like, so long ago."  We were waiting for the priest, waiting to begin the Palm Sunday service and procession to the Catholic church nearby.  I've been part of many Palm Sunday services in various churches across the United States, but somehow this reenactment of Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem felt more authentic.  It seemed more natural, more real, because I supposed that some of these peoples' lives are not so different from those in the time of the New Testament.

Thoughts of hurried Sunday mornings in my family's home--hot indoor showers, dishes hurriedly thrown in the dishwasher, frantic searches for a pair of pantyhose or a missing shoe, the inevitable chorus of "Let's go! We'll be late!"--seemed so far from the rhythm of this morning, of every morning, in this village in Zambia.

It was April of 2011, but it could have been April of 30 AD.  Palm frond in hand, I had a new appreciation of, almost an experience of, what had before been just a story in the Bible.