I have a compulsion. Well, I have many, but I am going to share one with you today. Every Sunday, before I come here, I sit in front of my computer sipping my coffee and open up The New York Times dot com. I immediately then click on the Styles Section and then click on Weddings and Celebrations, and up pops the listing of those folks who have been selected as interesting enough to be listed on that page.

Before reading each entry (which I do) I scan all the names, looking, searching for announcements of marriages and unions of my lesbian and gay sisters and brothers. About eight years ago The Times began publishing same sex unions and then when Canada and then Massachusetts made marriage legal, The Times included those as well. This has become somewhat of an addiction for me: not so much out of voyeurism, nor for the description of fashion (or better yet fashion faux-paxs) but because I am a hopeless romantic. I love the idea of people getting married, of publicly declaring their union to one another, and a part of me, I guess, hopes that I will find that man or that man will find me someday to "take that public plunge" so to speak. Although I have been involved in two long term relationships, neither made it to the level that my romantic self envisages as necessary to take those public vows.

One of the things that attracts me to these pages in The New York Times is the idea of change and growth and the risk of opening oneself up for what is a flowering change and a flowering growth...as well as opening oneself up to an uncertain and unknown future. There is this tension between the optimism and hope that the unions and marriages in those pages represent juxtaposed against the uncertainty that comes with change. Yet change happens no matter what we do.

Look at the change and the tension that exists in today's worship. We began with the Liturgy of the Palms and a reading from the Gospel of Luke about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Here we have a man, who for all intents and purposes was a humble pauper, entering the centerpiece of the Jewish world as a king, as the savior. And then we heard the long Passion narrative from the Gospel of Luke that picks up the story in the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem's gates. And we see the change from that triumphal entry to the trial, torture and death of this proclaimed king. What are we to make of this tension, of this change. How quickly we have moved from singing Hosannas to screaming "Crucify Him!"  

Isn't this typical of how we as humans respond to events in our daily lives? It is easy to shout Hosanna when things are going great and it is just as easy, when things are not going so well, or when there is change happening, to slump into feelings of distrust, feeling sorry for ourselves and striking out verbally, physically, psychologically. In times when change is occurring, stress levels rise and it is very easy to look back at a non-existent past, idolize that time and yearn for its return. A return that cannot happen. We do and we should honor our past, we do and we should remember it, learn from it, but never, never try to relive that past. We need to look at the present and to live into our future together.