Knowing the Difference

After the Maundy Thursday service, the altar was stripped bare.

Self-help gurus say that achieving success involves the cultivation of good habits such as aerobic exercise, daily planning, and eating breakfast. All too easy to overlook is the spiritual side of our natures. Many of the world’s people pray and read sacred text every day. I don’t, which is why I bestir myself to attend church on Sundays. Sitting in the pew with all electronics disabled forces me to contemplate the eternal at least once every seven days.

During Holy Week we are highly encouraged to resume the tradition of daily worship. However, this year Holy Week coincided with spring break, and I opted to plan activities with the youngster. We attended two musicals and traveled to the City on a third excursion. Although teenagers typically want to distance themselves from their parents, ours lately seems to be happier if we spend time together. From experience, these moods are fleeting; also, from experience, opportunities assumed to be common can surprisingly fail to re-appear. So I seized the week; sometimes even good habits need to be broken.

On Palm Sunday the youth read the Passion according to Mark.