I wonder what Jerusalem was like on the morning of the crucifixion.  As we Trinity pilgrims walked the Via Dolorosa one morning last October, I couldn't help but notice everything that others were doing even as - at dawn - we wound our silent way through the streets of the Old City. Israeli soldiers in clumps were moving to their posts. A few early shopkeepers hauled up their shutters and feral cats explored the piles of trash awaiting collection.

On that other morning so long ago, the city would have been full of Passover pilgrims and Roman soldiers charged with maintaining order. I imagine Christ's beaten body and tottering steps as a sort of marginal sideshow in the heart of a bustling and preoccupied city. I remember what the poet W.H. Auden observes about suffering - that it always takes place "while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along."