To some, the Messiah was predicted to be a political leader, a singular hero, liberation through the only means that liberation could come. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. And no one had a blueprint for what would come next.

They identified with Jesus, because Jesus identified with them. Whipped, flogged, slapped in the face, crucified, hung.

We each have our own multifaceted relationship to the rhythms that have shaped us. Some we keep, sometimes improvising and re-creating it as our patterns of life change. Others we discard, knowing that they aren’t right for our souls right now.

When I turned the corner into the quad and saw the trees, my heart broke open in aching grief for my mother, who died two years ago. History incarnated this space and made it sacred, immersing me within this small piece of my mother’s life.

One of the truest things I have come to know through my craft is that we parents, in the most mundane things, in the way we dress our children, and the way we make them food full of nutrition (or not, as is the case sometimes in our home), we are putting our love for our loved ones into tangible, physical objects.