It is easy enough to tell the genuine wine from the knock off. You just look for the official seal of approval. Don't you wish it were so easy with people? As we turn towards Holy Week, we remember that people asked Jesus at his trial if he was the 'real deal'? Are you the Son of God? they asked. Or as the Romans so often put it, 'by whose authority do you speak?' Everybody in Rome had a patron. 
This week we reflect on authenticity. Would you know it if you saw it in action? Jesus remains enigmatic on this question precisely because it is not something you can answer in a straight and simple way. Rather it is demonstrated in a life. This is our spiritual challenge as we grow and evolve towards the person we are meant to be.

It is never easy making difficult decisions. Last week we voted to sell the parsonage at 57 New England avenue having to choose between competing values that were each important. Not surprisingly, these stresses in the congregation, I can easily absorb myself. And you can add those to a longer and more substantive list of other frustrations that come from watching people you love suffer and die, for example. 
What do you do to off load that stress? I'm sure the Doctors are right that exercise and a change of venue are important. But genuine distraction helps as well.
This week my daughter called me to ask if I could run over to St. Teresa's nursery school and stand in for her as my grandson's had a parade of some sort. I get over there just in time to see them with dozens of other kids all with helium balloons tied to their wrists, processing parade style from the nursery school to the steps in front of the church for a group photograph. They both spot the lone Papa in the throng of Mother's and work their way close enough to slap me a high five.
     Meanwhile the teachers are directing all the students to stand politely while their parents take a picture. The bad Papa, I notice that I haven't brought a camera or my phone. Just then, I'm focusing on both of them, at other ends of the crowd from each other. They are both fidgeting with their wrists. At practically the same time, they both manage to loosen the string from their arm, freeing their balloons on a very windy day, much to the excitement of the children who are hoping they will sail to China. This brings a chorus of scolding from the teachers not to release the helium balloons just because Cy and Charlie Garvey did it.
     In an instant, I am transported back in time to St. Anthony's school where the nuns were calling me out for releasing my helium balloon in kindergarten. It brought to mind William Faulkner who said, "the past is never really over. In fact, it is not even past."
     Once again, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The delight and joy of that recognition make it difficult to stay anxious and ridden by stress. They are the antidote to taking yourself too seriously. I hope for you this season, as we deal with the adult tensions of tax season and the very real losses that beset us periodically, that you will have a moment where you remember the unbearable lightness of our being and the wonder that we get to live.

The Rev.