Before we can rejoice in the Easter resurrection, we need to take a long look at betrayal, an experience that isn’t unique to the Apostle Peter, but an encounter through which we all have lived. How many times have you been wounded by a person or entity’s words or actions that felt like betrayal? Often this betrayal comes from a most cherished source, so it hurts exponentially more.

My book, Tell the Truth About Adultery, is coming out on June 28th, so I feel the need to let you know what’s behind the curtain my writing.

It’s Palm Sunday this week. I remember fondly my mom sewing new dresses for all of us four sisters. For in Lebanon, we wore our Easter finery on Palm Sunday (Shaynini) as well as Easter. We paraded down our block along with other bedecked families streaming out of their apartments on their way to their places of worship, waving palm branches and carrying aloft their floral decorated candles. In our neighborhood, these places of Christian worship included Maronite Catholic, Syriac, Roman Catholic, and Baptist Churches.

As a gardener, I can have the top of the line sprinkler system, and supplement with tender loving hand watering, but both my baby seedlings and mature plants react the same to a rain shower. They reach up and out in their eagerness to grow: shooting out tendrils, putting on more leaves, and prolifically popping out buds.

That glazed over the eye, the foggy detached look are tell-tale signs that your conversations partner was just being perfunctory when he/she asked, “How are you doing?” And you, mistaking sincerity, answered the question.

It’s the closing bell of winter and I’m watching the changes in the plum tree out my study window. Each day, a few more puffs of white blossoms appear transforming one bloom into clusters of sweet smelling flowers clinging to bare branches.