Today is Palm Sunday.  I hate when Easter comes this early in the year.  On my walk today I observed that very few people have decorated their homes for Easter.  I’m guessing they are just burnt out from the long Winter and no Spring feeling is in the air…no feelings of new beginnings.  I saw that surly-looking robin again today.  I passed Christ the Good Shepherd Church as people were pouring out, clutching their palms; some used their palms as makeshift Bible bookmarks.  Through the years we would get a piece of palm from Mrs. Elmore and then Marge and tuck the fresh one in a picture frame.  It all seems so long ago.  There is a brittle palm on my mom’s high boy which must be fifteen years old.  Today Holy Week starts and we have a new Pope … and … hope.  Yesterday, oh to be a fly on the wall when the two Popes broke bread together.  I wonder what they spoke about?  A former Pope and current Pope meeting one another is an event that has not transpired in over 1,600 years!  I was deep in thought about their tete-a-tete when two squirrels chasing each other, and quite oblivious to my presence, nearly ran me over.  Then they saw me and panicked and I held my breath that they wouldn’t dash into the street.   I couldn’t look.   Then I heard nails clicking as they scampered past me and clambered up the nearest tree.  I let out my breath again.  I saw some more tulips pushing through the still, snow-covered earth while on today’s stroll.  Hope springs eternal.  Better enjoy today’s walk since the weatherman says we are getting one or two inches of snow tonight.  It will be a snowy Passover tomorrow.  I’ll channel some positive thoughts: 

Life is a very narrow bridge between two eternities. Be not afraid.–Rabbi Nachman of Braslav