Palm Branches:
We all have them. We all carry them. We usually all hold on too tightly to them.
They are our hopes and our dreams and our desires.
For many, they are our expectations.
Palm branches are brittle. They break. What a beautiful disaster that awaits church custodial crews every Palm Sunday after hundreds of littles get their hands on them. They make a mess. They can poke your eyes (from experience). They get trampled on and they get trampled over.
As do our hopes and our dreams and our desires.
And our expectations….
So what happens when our hopes and our dreams and our desires don’t turn out the way we had hoped and dreamed and desired?
What happens when those expectations fall short. Maybe woefully short, and with it comes a wave of grief, anger, pain?
I think it’s ok to hold our hopes and dreams and desires and expectations. I think it’s ok to carry them with us and wave them around. As so long, I think, as we can name what those hopes and dreams and desires and expectations are. And as so long, I think, as we can hold loosely to them and lay them down when the time is right.
Because palm branches can also be blinders. If we wave them high enough, frantically enough and for long enough, we will miss God’s slow walk directly in front of us.
Raise them high, then lay them low.
With Hope,
