This past Sunday, I asked my theological spouse what she thought was the real message of Palm Sunday. Her response surprised me.
“I always found it telling,” she said, “that so many welcomed Jesus with open arms, reverently placing palms down in His path to acknowledge Him as the truest of godly men, the Messiah even, only to deny him five days later. That alone speaks volumes to me as a believer about the nature of humanity.”
As we approach Easter, I have pondered this again and again. How often do we do this? How often do we only stand for principles when they are easy or convenient? How often do we run from conflict because we are afraid? How often do we deny our own belief systems because a mob threatens us?
It really doesn’t matter what your belief system may be, be it Christian, Muslim, Humanist, Buddhist, or Agnostic. Each of us are called to follow a fundamental, human system of goodness, a fundamental call to character. We are tested over and over again throughout each day.
Do we tell the cashier she missed ringing up our carrots or gave us too much change?
Do we help the homeless guy or walk over him in the street?
Do we turn our heads when we see someone else cheat or steal, convincing ourselves it is not our concern?
Do we laugh as others mock or denigrate our fellow man?
Do we pad our tax deductions because everyone does it?
Do we repost vile and disgusting memes because we think they may get us a laugh or another follower?
Do we fail to disclose all of the pertinent facts in a business deal and then brag about getting away with it later?
Integrity has been defined in the simplest of terms as doing the right thing even when no one is looking. I say especially when no one is looking because we, ourselves, are looking.
Many believe that the ‘original sin’ that so many religions tout is the idea that we are able to make a conscious choice to go against what we know is fundamentally good. We can justify this a thousand ways from Sunday. We know better than the law, we must cheat to avoid being cheated, we are simply fighting fire with fire… The reasoning goes on and on. But reasoning can get twisted when it denies what our heart and gut know is true.
To walk a true path means to walk with the heart as well as the brain and the gut. To align our moral compass with everything we do, say, think and feel.
The greatest gift of our humanity is our ability to question our own motives, to measure them against our desires and to act in humanity’s highest and best interests, not just for ourselves, but for all of life, mankind, animal kind, the earth, the universe, etc. (Notice that I did not include the best interest of corporations.)
We, as a species, have become so good at rationalizing our decisions that we often throw out the baby with the bathwater. We place corporate profits above our own wellbeing. We seek money by fooling each other. We allow shrewd marketing to convince us that things are good for us when we know they are not. We only tell one side of a story.
I once heard a wise person say that if we need to start a sentence with “honestly” we are probably trying to rationalize a lie.
I once heard another wise person say that if we need to use a lot of words to justify something, we are probably lying to ourselves.
Our modern world has become so complex and distorted that we now name things exactly the opposite of what they are. Case in point, Truth social, a platform of misinformation disguised as truth. Fake news is another term thrown around way too often against anyone or any entity that seeks to tell the whole story. “All natural” and “No preservatives added” are yet more examples.
These tactics are as old as humanity itself but so is our ability to seek authentic truth, a truth that supersedes ego and profit and our own self-serving desires. In his famous book “Walking” Thoreau states that “Genius is the light which makes the darkness visible.” Rereading his wise counsel, I am called once again to saunter, to walk without direction so that I may allow myself to be bathed in the genuine realness that is wilderness, allowing myself to be open to the real, the true, the authentic evidence that wilderness affords me, a world beyond our own making. As such, I become a part of something so much bigger than myself rather than a master over it.
Currently, I am rereading the Original Gospels, as directly translated from Syriac rather than filtered through two thousand years of patriarchal power. It’s amazing how much these original words have been reshaped to fit the power structures of organized religion.
Artists and geniuses invite us to seek authentic truth in every generation. “Imagine all the people, living life in peace…”
Indeed, almost more important than the message of ressurection, Palm Sunday is a great reminder of how slippery a slope humanity and free will can be.