… Holy Week … missing the point … ?

Halfway through holy week. Palm Sunday last Sunday! For me, the week when we can see the end of winter (except, apparently this year). When we were kids, sometimes it was the first day mom and dad would let us take off our shoes and socks and run into the backyard, barefoot. There was also a back door to our house and in those years, they closed that door off for the coldest months, but on this day, or sometime during this week, if the weather really was warmer, that door would open. A ‘yaaaah!!!’ coming out from some of the bondages of winter.  

Also, it’s the day that reminds us of how badly we keep missing the point, as they did back then, in Mark. The book of Mark.  Three times Jesus tells his disciples as they begin that journey to Jerusalem, that his end is near,  and they really don’t ever quite get it. At first they protest, then they argue among themselves about who will be first in Jesus’ kingdom, and finally two of them come right out and ask if one of them can sit on either side of him in his kingdom. Really?! It’s still, after a couple of years with Jesus, pretty much a strongman they are imagining, a conqueror, a winner. And even though we have 2000 years of Bible reading and endless resources and interpretations available to us now, I kind of get their misplaced hope. They had been living in misery under the Romans and under their own Jewish laws for a long time. They were desperate for some kind of freedom and liberation. And are we much different today? 

In Mark 8, Peter boldly rebukes Jesus when Jesus talks about his suffering and impending death.  And when Jesus stops him and says, get behind me Satan, this was probably not a personal Satan he was talking about. This was the need we humans have – and so evident in many Christian churches – for a triumphalist, conquering, militaristic Jesus. They did not get it back then and it’s difficult for us to get it these days as well. Cause, really, it’s taking a long time. We crave a winner.  A kind one if possible.

On the other hand, I wonder if, intuitively, we all do get it. Why else are we so repulsed by the indiscriminate bombing of children and entire families in Gaza. By innocent young people murdered in Israel on October 7. By insane gun violence in the United States, so often in schools. By 4 more years of DJT? By Putin’s capacity to destroy a country just because he wants to, and equally, his shameless hunting down, one by one, of any who oppose him. Why else did the world finally stop holding its nose and demanded an end to apartheid in South Africa, and why else can we barely stomach even hearing the holocaust horror stories, or those out of Rwanda or Cambodia, or Uganda under Idi Amin … or these days, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia.  We hate that stuff and it’s partly why, I guess, we get impatient with the upside down kingdom stuff of Mark and Matthew and Luke and John?  So maybe, in a way, we do get what Jesus was always talking about and what he lived out among his followers way back then. Maybe they sort of got it too? Why, really, did they follow him? Because they smelled there was something bigger, better,  safer,  kinder … somewhere?

We watched the state funeral for (former Prime Minister) Brian Mulroney Saturday morning.  Over two hours, it didn’t seem long to me. His daughter delivered a well-prepared tribute, as did others, including Wayne Gretzky, who, unlike any of the others, seemed to speak without notes. He was short, funny, and his stories, like all the stories were respectful and interesting.  At the very end, a granddaughter (Elizabeth Lapham) who looked about 18, sang a tribute, but her emotions got the better of her and she had a hard time starting, and then finishing.  She sang well, but what dazzled in that moment was the spontaneous applause as she struggled and than a standing ovation … they wanted to help. All those people, most of them strangers to her..

Matt Galloway interviewed a research person last week. Elizabeth Dunn had published an article in Psychological Science (2023) about people being generous. There are other studies that show, around the world, at any level of income, people are happier when they are giving than when they are taking. Generosity is a thing!  It’s not something we fundraisers have just made up, though we love to pretend it’s kind of our idea. It’s not!  In a ‘rigorous’ study, Dunn and her team gave 10,000 dollars to 200 people from around the world (Brazil, Kenya, Indonesia, Austrailia, Canada, the UK, and the USA … average age 34) with no strings attached, except, they wanted to know how people spent the money.  They built into the experiment a structure to make sure the participants were not influenced by having to report back, and they found that across the board, people spent about $6400 on other people, including $1700 they gave to charity. Even those for whom this extra 10k was more than their annual income. Half the group was asked to post on Twitter (X now) how they spent their money. The other half were told to keep the information private. And even that made no difference.  They were all more generous than not.  The article concludes … quite simply, the study offers hope.  Humans can be surprisingly generous, even when money is scarce and even when no one is watching.

We are capable of Hitler, of Idi Amin, of Apartheid, of Rwanda, of Mugabe, of Palestine, and Turkey and the Armenians. We are capable of residential schools and putting people on reservations and keeping them there and then justifying it for decades and decades. But our nature, it seems, isn’t really that. Else why does that whole 100-year experiment bother us?  We humans have a nature that does actually somehow get the upside down kingdom that Jesus talks about, and we yearn for that kind of world.  Why else do we feel better when we are helpful to the person beside us? Why else do we stand and cheer on a young woman struggling to sing for her grandfather in front of hundreds of intimidating people?  It’s surely that other kingdom beckoning us … for which we were already fitted.

… Las Vegas … ?

Kathy and I spent a few days in Nevada earlier last month.  We were with neighbors from Calgary who had invited us to join them, so we had the benefit of easy travel and access, and a place to stay.  A busy and interesting 5-day introduction. 

Many people we talk to have been to Las Vegas but this was our first; a little to my surprise, it’s not a big city.  If you google numbers, the total Metro Area of Las Vegas has just under 3,000,000 people, but the actual, Las Vegas City area is less than a million. And still you get the impression it’s larger than life. The entire entertainment industry of the US seems to be jammed into about 4.2 miles of ‘the strip’ as it’s called, (Las Vegas Blvd), and yes, you have to admire the architects and engineers and contractors who had both the vision and then the skills to build block after block, building upon building, (one large hotel has a gigantic, frightening roller coaster all around it) …  hotels, casinos, shops, spheres, concert halls and eating places. It’s really a 24/7 Carnaval, with people, music, lights … so much light … and well, noise. But mostly, I think we found it a not-like-other-cities, somewhat loud experience with most people looking as lost as we were, wandering around, stopping here and there, and most of us equally curious.   

When I asked a couple of people where everyone comes from to populate ‘the strip’ and all it offers, to fill the hotels and casinos and shows … , well, the answer is, from everywhere. Last Fall LV hosted the Formula One Race. Earlier this month they hosted the Super Bowl, which apparently brought in 300,000 visitors. The arena for that event itself holds somewhere around 65,000. The others spend money everywhere else.  LV now has an NHL team, and they are pitching to have a major league baseball team.  Do they have enough people to fill those seats? Over and over? To keep the hotel and casino industry going? To sell out major concerts for performers like Cirque and Adele and David Copperfield and Celine Dion and Jerry Seinfeld and Bruce Springsteen, not to mention daily and nightly less-well-known performances in any of 100s of venues all running at the same time? I don’t think they do, but that was never the point. The point was to bring people in for the Las Vegas experience.

So, I suppose, it’s kind of a fake city. It operates on the premise that people will come. And they do, especially on weekends.  By Friday morning, you can tell that parking lots are filling up, hotel parking lots are packed, casinos, eating places, and more than anything, the sidewalks. And curiously, Las Vegas is blessed with some kind of privileged weather system so that they can kind of count on sun, pretty much every day.

I think I had expected a kind of raucous experience, especially on ‘the Strip’.  And if you spend an hour or two on Fremont Street after dark (4 or 5 blocks with a graphics-live canopy above you and 4 zip lines end to end) the noise and some of the street activity can become a bit much, but really, people who visit Las Vegas seem like modest, mostly careful people. I had expected to see some MAGA hats, but never saw even one. So while the whole thing is intimidating at first, and for sure we were awed by the ‘so much of everything all at once’ experience, the whole thing, for me at least, was more interesting than weird. 

Not sure if I had a highlight. We visited Hoover Dam, Valley of Fire, and Death Valley … each a day trip and worth the time and the drive.  All highlights. On the Strip … well, stumbling on the synchronized fountain (Bellagio Water Show) when they played it to Andrea Bocelli singing ‘time to say goodbye’ with Sarah Brightman … pretty special. Buskers, really talented buskers are everywhere. And an amazing hotdog, loaded with perfectly done onions … on the street. Also ‘cool’.

I might add a note.  Pope Francis delivered a LENT sermon a week or so ago, and I stumbled across it.  He laments what he calls the globalization of indifference. He says LENT needs to be a time where we move away from things that enslave us, away from our idols. He refers to Israel, having left Egypt and finding themselves in the desert for a long time, beginning to miss their days of slavery. Surely, Egypt was better than what they were experiencing in the desert, they began to grumble.  The Pope’s point is that LENT is a time of reflection, but also action, action towards freedom from what keeps us inert and holds us in place, albeit with shaky securities. 

Las Vegas is an interesting place. The sheer size and dazzle and imagination of the place has to be admired. But it’s also built, it seems to me, on a premise of indifference, and by that I mean, it’s a spectator’s paradise. Or, at least, it’s a giant metaphor for indifference.  One show. Another show. Another building. Another shop. There is plenty. A day on ‘the strip’ gives only a taste, I’m quite sure. My friend, the other day, said in respond that we might be better off with more indifference these days, than we are with the ever present polarization happening in churches, in politics, in almost any public or private community, even inside families.  He’s right, for sure, but I wonder if the Pope’s worry about indifference is that it’s the other side of polarization. Polarization becomes so nasty on social media, in public discourse, even in church sermons sometimes, that indifference becomes our safer place. Indifference becomes a refuge. It’s possible that is what Pope Francis is worrying about. But then he finishes with this line: ‘we need to find the courage to see our world, not as in its death throes, but in a process of giving birth. Take hope by the hand, he says to his listeners.’