Monday Meditation
The drama begins today
Dear Substack Community: I am reflecting on yesterday’s protest of Palm Sunday and today’s silence. What does this week look like for those of us remembering the stories and life of Jesus? How might we tend to the ancestral wisdom of our bodies that teaches us to do good in the world; do right by people; and, make peace at every step of the way? Let today be a step we all take together toward a peaceable kingdom, despite knowing the drama of this week in the Christian story.
Paz, —RCE+
Monday Meditation: The Tension Between Triumph and Trouble
Yesterday, we shouted Hosanna.
We lifted palms like protest signs,
believing for a moment that love could undo empire.
Today, the streets are quieter.
Jesus has entered the city,
but so has surveillance.
So has suspicion.
So has the slow machinery of betrayal.
The air is thick with tension—
between what could be
and what is.
In the Gospel of Mark, Monday is the day Jesus flips tables in the Temple.
He doesn’t wait to be welcomed.
He walks straight into the center of religious power and
interrupts the economy of exploitation.
He sees how the sacred has been sold to the highest bidder.
He sees the doves in cages.
He sees the poor priced out of prayer.
He sees—and he acts.
Today is a good day to ask:
What tables need overturning in our world?
In our churches?
In ourselves?
What part of me has made peace with empire,
while still whispering Hosanna?
This is the drama of Holy Week.
It’s not just about remembering Jesus’ journey.
It’s about locating ourselves inside the tension:
Between courage and comfort.
Between prophetic truth and self-preservation.
Between what we say we believe
and how we live when no one’s watching.
We walk with Jesus today
not toward triumph,
but toward truth.
He is not playing the empire’s game.
He is not campaigning for power.
He is preparing to give everything
so that we might be free.
So we breathe.
We pray.
We listen for the voice in the temple
still calling us to turn over what no longer serves
and to make space again
for what is sacred.
And we remember:
The path to resurrection always passes through protest,
through tension,
through costly love.
A Prayer to Close:
O Christ,
who sees the doves in cages
and the poor turned away from holy ground—
come flip our tables.
Turn over every system in us
that profits from domination,
every altar we’ve built to comfort,
every habit of despair.
Help us walk this Holy Week awake,
with palms still in our hands
and courage rising in our hearts.
Amen.