A Palm Sunday – Techno Revelation
What is a Palm Sunday-Techno Revelation? Well, let me start back a few years.
I was about fifteen years old and was watching the Tonight Show. Walter Pidgeon, that’s Mr. Miniver for you old Hollywood fans, was a guest. Being a serious actor, he didn’t sing or dance or tell jokes, so he was asked to recite his favorite poem. He did in a very dramatic way and I was “glued to the tube” and had tears in my eyes when he finished. After getting over the initial performance and message of the piece, all I could remember about it were the final two lines. They had such an impact on me I couldn’t get them out of my head. From what I could recall, I had to assume the name of the poem must be something about a donkey….or something about Palm Sunday….or something about…well, I was lost. How could I ever find a poem when I didn’t know what the title was?
This scant information didn’t keep me from looking. I searched every book of poems I came across for decades. Being a frequent visitor to old bookstores and antiques shops, I pulled every dust-covered volume from every shelf for years and looked through the pages, always hoping that wonderful old poem would jump out at me. But it wasn’t until nearly thirty years from first hearing it that I had any luck.
I was in a used bookstore in Milan, Tennessee, Debbie’s hometown, 25 years ago and picked up a ragged old book of poetry. I ran my thumb down the index pages and suddenly there it was! The Donkey by G.K. Chesterson. My heart was racing so fast at the thought of finally finding this treasure I could barely whip the pages back to page 401. But when I did, I stood there and read for the first time the words of Walter Pidgeon that had been ringing in my head for a score and ten years. (See how the poetry has affected me?)
I bought the book and it is on the shelf in a special place in my office right this minute. Each year I read that little four-stanza poem to the Sunday school class I teach. (They’re probably sick of it by now and dread to see me pull it out.) Well, just moments ago, as I was finishing up the lesson for tomorrow morning at the computer, I told myself not to forget to take the poem. But instead of getting up and walking all the way across the room for the book, I simply stayed in my seat and typed in THE DONKEY. Immediately the words of that old, once- lost poem filled the screen. Thus the title of this piece, Palm Sunday- Techno Revelation.
What took me half a lifetime to find can now be found in seconds. If only I had had a computer to turn to when I was fifteen, I would never have had to spend so much time on the search. But then I had a lot of fun looking. And thanks to Walter Pidgeon, G.K. Chesterson and that glorious old donkey, I’m a better man for it.
Saturday March 23, 2013
DSR
