Riding with Hope

Have you ever met a prime minister on a street? I know, the US doesn’t have prime ministers, so have you ever met, say, the President or the Secretary of State? Just imagine, shortly after the Velvet Revolution, almost 25 years ago now, I saw Czech Prime Minister Petr Pithart leaving the Parliament and walking along the sidewalk, probably for a lunch in one of the nearby restaurants.
    Those were the heady days of the newly found freedom after the collapse of totalitarian regime. In those days a dada-ist Society for the Merrier Present gifted the newly elected Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel with a red scooter so that he could get faster from one corner of Prague Castle to another. And he did use it! It was remembered decades later in many obituaries by world news-outlets: for instance BBC, The Economist, The Guardian, CNN, even NYT!
    The “presidential scooter” was a mere trifle among his real achievements of the thoughtful resistance to the totalitarian regime, his participation in the dismantling of the Iron Curtain and peaceful transition in Central Europe. But the presidential scooter clearly captured the imagination of many and made it into history books, and rightly so. That scooter was a song of joy, an outburst of hope and a mockery to all the pompous and self-obsessed politicians with armored limousines, bodyguard gorillas with squeaking earpieces and regiments of secret agents and sharpshooters all around. That red scooter was a symbol of the playful imagination over against the drab bureaucratism of power.
    When Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey he made exactly such a statement and a prophetic gesture which is still remembered two thousand years later. Join us this Palm Sunday in celebrating the alternative vision of politics, life and religion. And if you or your child/ren have a scooter, bring it along for our Palm Sunday Scooter Procession.