Palm Origami

After Palm Sunday service, after Chime Choir rehearsal, after most people had drained their coffee mugs and exited the fellowship hall, after the office staff were well into their tasks, a small group of women gathered in the Church foyer around the vase of extra palm branches left from the children's Palm Parade in the morning service.

Pastor was there, bending and twisting an ornery palm into the shape of a cross - something she had learned long ago and was trying to recall. Two or three others were following her lead, trying to figure out the pattern for folding the thick green brown fronds. It is an age old tradition, worked into a complex art form in some places.

I remember my good Catholic friends when I was in elementary school, bringing in their palm crosses to class with pride. Mothers taught daughters, Grandmothers taught grand daughters. Every family had its own particular twist on just how to create a decorative cross to carry throughout Passion Week.

First, you fold it at a ninety degree angle downward, then twist it back. Make a box in the center - bring it towards you, up, over and down through the center. Faces were focused studiously on the task at hand, punctuated with cries of frustration. "No, wait. Which way did you go next? I didn't see." Sometimes the pupil had to turn around and stand in the same position as the teacher in order to understand how to proceed.

It was bonding at it's best. No one was in a hurry to leave. Everyone tried their hand at palm folding. Some crosses came out a bit lopsided - not bad for a beginner. Some had extra folds and decoration - a left over from childhood days. All of the little crosses carried heart and passion and care. We chatted and laughed as we worked at it, sometimes discarding a failed attempt, or unfolding to start over.

The appeal was cross platform. We were young girls, older women, middle aged - a nice intergenerational mix. Like a town gathering at the local waterhole, we took solace in the company of others seeking something special to mark our journey this year, some memorable event to tie us with Christ and the time of his life and death, and to root us in the traditions of the Church of past generations as well as future.

It was wonderfully liberating. I heard my phone buzz that the boys were here to pick me up. It was hard to tear myself away, yet I knew I had a full day ahead. I took seven fronds with me. Could I weave the magic on my own in the quiet of the days ahead? My tradition has always been to nail the fronds over the door posts of my home, a reminder and connection with passover's fulfillment.

Somehow it almost hurts me to inflict pain on the poor palm by twisting it into a cross. Christ's pain is already unbearable to think about. I thought about it all afternoon. I couldn't do it. At last I asked Kiel to nail the fronds over the door and went to evening service.

One last chance. I was handed one more palm frond. Could I make the cross? I lay it gently on the coffee table and retired. In the morning, I folded it without actually creasing any of the bends and carried it to my office where I draped it around my monitor. The folds remained and the frond hugs my screen, brown and dying and twisted. It is all I can handle.

The next time I entered the Church building, there on a table in the hall lay a handful of carefully twisted palm crosses, inviting the world to participate in our ritual observation of Easter to come.

Later in the week, a dear friend pulled from her purse a small palm cross she had made, beautifully crafted and slender. I received it with joy and tucked it into my own purse where it has lifted me up with encouragement everytime I open my purse to retrieve something. I love to trace the lines with my fingers, moved by the firm coarseness, the smooth fibers, the rough edges.

It is a year for crosses. I hold on to mine and cherish them. And I remember. I am not alone.