If you hand a fundamentalist a palm frond (or a mouse a cookie)
We will be both a little confused
I have been hanging with the Lutherans. In my neighborhood, they meet in a lovely butter-cream-colored building by Falls River and if I could get my act together, I would walk there, it’s that close.
I remain a visitor, but joining seems to be a fairly laid-back process, as does taking communion with the saints. As best as I can tell, both events are open to any one, and so I have done neither.
That doesn’t make sense, does it? But fundamentalists are comfortable with rules and though I’ve asked, there don’t seem to be a lot of rules with this bunch. How would I join, I asked once, a little haltingly, and they put me on the email list. I do not think this necessarily makes me a Lutheran, but baby steps.
Yesterday was Palm Sunday, and a smiling lady I know from our local gym handed me a frond as I walked in. I knew why, but fundamentalists don’t celebrate religious holidays (though we were all about the secular part of things such as Easter baskets and Christmas trees) and so I laid the frond in the pew — within reach, should I be called on to wave it or wear it or something.
A boy sitting in the pew front of me was trying to twist his frond into a cross, and when we passed the peace, I asked him if he would make one for me. He can do origami, but said he hadn’t figure this out yet. I thought about checking my phone for a video, but this is church and that could wait.
The conversations mostly centered around how unprepared was Jerusalem — and the world — for Jesus’ last visit, and I kept flashing back to my favorite retelling of the story:
(As you may imagine, fundamentalists are not supposed to listen to this and so I secretly bought the album and listened it very quietly. When I became old enough to drive, I bought an 8-track tape and played it VERY LOUD(ly).)
(Bummer that Judas got the best song in the show, though.)
After church, I had errands to run that included checking on the baby chicks at my local feed store (one day, I will have chickens), and when I came home, I checked out a YouTube video and made this:
It took me longer than I want to admit. My palm cross rests in my kitchen next to a New Mexican recuerdo (memory) cross and my BunJesus, a bit of art that has Jesus jumping from the cross with a bungee cord attached to His ankle. The angle of this photo makes it look as if Jesus is heading to heaven, but in reality, the little guy is swan-diving toward the sink unless He calls on the angels to save him. He’s frozen in space. We will never know.
Come to think of it, all those rules I was taught to embrace mean even less to me now than they did then, sneaking a “Jesus Christ Superstar” record into my house, rolling my eyes at all the admonitions to be a “help-mate” to my future husband.
Still. It’s been a long walk back into a church building and I’m moving gingerly.
I was listening to a novel yesterday, and one line has stuck with me: You can focus on the hurt and never move from square one. Or you can focus on the healing and kiss the hurt goodbye. I’m paraphrasing but you get my meaning.
I urge you to check out this book by my brilliant brother-in-law, Ross MacDonald. He's a wicked funny talented guy. And he knows what Jesus would craft. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/what-would-jesus-craft-diy-for-the-irreverently-devout/2015/11/03/ff47b004-8231-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html
Boy howdy. That last bit is a timely reminder for me. Do not focus on the echo of hurt, either. I somehow wanderered too close to the edge of Bad Memory Canyon yesterday. Gonna throw myself a rope today and ride my new electric bike.