Queasy among the palms

I think I have never felt good about Palm Sunday. Whether it was reading/hearing the whole of the Passion story, or concentrating on the events of the day itself, I was always so aware of the fickle nature of "the crowd" - and how convenient so to label them: people not like us, you know - we're better than that. Except that we're not, and the cheering, palm-waving crowds who welcomed Jesus on what was today described as a "hot-wired donkey" exemplify so much of what is wrong with us as we sway through life. Cheerful, fearful - and as we change our spots, someone else suffers. The friend we betray, the hurt we do by heedlessly altering an arrangement or blithely finding something else we want to do: all these resonances sound together with the hosannas and leave me with an unpleasant taste.

Was there even an echo of irony in the words of "All glory, laud and honour ..."?

Off again

As at this time last year, I'm about to abandon the blogosphere for a bit and return to the less virtual (but I hope virtuous) occupation of singing. The photo is of where we'll be tomorrow afternoon, singing Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus for a joint Palm Sunday Eucharist with the congregations of St Martin's, Tighnabruaich and St Paul's, Rothesay. As there is not actually a Piskie church building in Tighnabruaich, services are held in Kames Parish Church, of which this is the bell-tower.

After that we're off to Cumbrae again, to my favourite cathedral, where we shall have three days of singing and contemplation. At least, I hope there will be time for the latter; musicians have ways of seducing one into "one more run through ...". Me, I like to quite while we're ahead.

And in case that all seems too holy for words, I'm taking Christopher Brookmyre's All Fun and Games until Someone Loses an Eye to finish - if I can keep my eyes open, that is.