Marches and Processions – March 28, 2018

This is the week for walking with others.  During Holy Week the church’s rituals are full of processions.  We process with palms…with oils…with candles.  We process forward to get our feet washed, to venerate the cross, to bless ourselves with Easter Water, to offer our gifts.   We come to the altar to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus in Communion.  And – most importantly – we go out into the streets “to make God’s good world, better.”  All this walking is not just walking.  It is walking WITH OTHERS.  That’s what makes a procession special, different, more powerful.  It’s not about walking with precision.    It’s about walking in community.  There is something about walking with other, in community, that helps us “take the next step.”

On Saturday I was one of the many thousands of people who participate in the March for Our Lives, calling for gun control.  In November I’ll be going to the polls to vote, too.  And in between, I’ll be lobbying my state legislators as well as my congressman and senators in Washington.  Knowing that I am not alone in these actions gives me the strength to continue the work of mercy and justice.

In processions we don’t walk in lock-step with one another.  We bump into one another, going too fast or too slow, listing to the left, veering to the right.  But this is OK.  In fact, it’s better when the people I walk with are different from me.  Community doesn’t mean we’re all the same and unity doesn’t mean uniformity.  I know I don’t have all the answers.  Others have wisdom I do not have.

Part of not-having-all-the-answers is not being able to see far into the future.  There is so much that is unknown and unknowable.  I have so many questions when I think about my life, our nation, the church, this world of ours.  And a year from now? Five years from now? Twenty-five years from now?  Who knows what the future holds?  All any of us can do is “the next right thing.”  One step at a time.  Together.