Today, according to tradition, we celebrate ‘Holy Monday’, the significance of which (according to an AI search engine) is as follows:
Monday following Palm Sunday, also known as Holy Monday or Great and Holy Monday, is significant in Christianity as a day commemorating events from the last days of Jesus’ life, particularly the cleansing of the temple. It’s a day to remember Jesus’ actions and teachings in the temple and his reaction to its commercialization.
It occurs to me that we all think that the significance of that shocking story of Jesus turning over tables in the temple – which can be found in three of the four gospels – applies to others, never ourselves. Sometimes the story has reinforced antisemitic messaging. At other times it has been used to throw stones at other peoples religion. I have used it as a way to point fingers at the unsustainable economic and ecological practices (mostly of others) – I have even written poems based on it. I almost posted one of them here.
But instead, let’s pause.
We know all that already.
What is in our space? What is in our hands? What does holiness look like where we are. where we live, where we share, where we spend?
Here is another one of Chris Fosten’s delicious poems to help us in our pondering. Here is what he said about this poem:
I read some George Herbert before Christmas last
year and really connected with some of the pain in his poem The Sinner –
which is where the phrase “shreds of holiness” comes from. He laments
that when he looks into his heart, despite his intentions, he seems
“pil’d vanities” and only shreds of holiness – dregs that are small in
comparison to where he feels he should be. It struck a chord, and the
phrase remained lodge in my mind for weeks._
Shreds of holiness
(after George Herbert)As others lament it is
all they have left,
I search for my own.
The “shreds of holiness”
buried within, despite
my resistance.
It had not occurred to me
there was a meaning
other than pious to that word –
the holy that others
cherished or enviously eyed.
A prize to win not
a state to find, an airy
dismissal of all without it.
But then I understood
George Herbert’s pain,
his shock at how far he
felt it was from him,
and I knew I couldn’t earn this
but I could find it within,
if I knew where to look.
