The Parade Part 2
March 16, 2026
The Parade Part 2
Not every parade is a party. Some are a public march toward cruelty.
Some parades are terrible experiences. Take the procession to Jesus’s crucifixion. It was a moving crowd that shouted insults, hurled garbage, and fed on the spectacle. Roman soldiers marched alongside the anger, and nearby were Jesus’s distraught, terrorized family members, including his mother, Mary. This was a parade to the summit of human evil: a teacher of goodness and love murdered by people who thought they were doing good.
Then there was the “parade” of Native Americans in 1831. Indigenous people, forced to walk the Trail of Tears from their homes to reservations across land they had inhabited for generations, yet never claimed to own. The Great Spirit owned the land. The earth was living and breathing, to be lived with, not used and destroyed. This was not a parade of mirth and merriment, but a parade toward the death of a people. As they walked, American soldiers drove men, women, and children like cowboys driving cattle.
Then there were the military parades of Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and others. Such parades were larger than life. Between larger than life pictures of the dictators, displays of weapons and rockets, rigid columns of soldiers, massive and synchronized, these parades were an intimidating form of distorted national pride.
What is it about a parade that can intimidate and threaten so well? It displays strength in numbers, power in sheer scale, and domination in the fear it creates. It rolls forward with tanks, flattening the shame that should be felt, while the wills of onlookers quietly shrink.
The parade has power.
Spiritual practice and self-inquiry: Go to YouTube and look up The Nuremberg Rally (1936). About one minute into the video, there is a parade. What emotions does this parade elicit in you? What does your soul say about what you have just seen?
Prayer:
Dear God, Save us from parading to our own destruction. Amen.
