The Origins Of Palm Sunday


It was one of those chilly mornings that constituted a New York spring. I was on the phone with Rich and alone upstairs in Mike's room. I was holding fresh Palm fronds that were passed out earlier in the day at Sunday Mass and while I spoke to him I was also weaving the fronds into the shape of a cross (the annual "replacing of the crosses"). The crosses made that day would eventually lose its water and dry into something that resembled the corn husks on an Mexican tamale. The crosses would be distributed throughout the house only to have the process repeated the next year.

So I had completed my share of crosses and still talking to Rich when I decided I would doodle while we talked. For some reason I need to busy other parts if my grey matter is intent upon a conversation. I was holding the pencil, sharpened to a vicious point (by me) and rumaging around looking for a piece of paper, when in my clumsiness? I dropped the pencil and fumbled with it.

I can see it in my mind as it tumbles end over end, in slow motion, as it finishes it's course, the rounded pink eraser smudged with black graphite, catches on Mike's dresser and the point at a frightening angle. Perfect slant to pierce my unsuspecting palm, breaking off at its flimsiest point, embedding itself into my weak flesh.

I was more surprised than hurt. I stood there looking at my palm and telling Rich what had happened. I think we even talked about it for a few minutes before I took a course of action. I think I might have tried to probe it out and had taken most of it away (the big piece) while the little pieces left traces.

So to this day I have a black dot buried beneath my palm where a pencilpoint has left a mark. Over the years it has been covered over with flesh and is now just one of those little indiosyncrasies that makes my body different from the next person.

But I thought it was strange that on Palm Sunday, the day that begins Holy Week, I should have something on my palm that left me a little holey as well.

I guess I know what they mean when they say "God works in mysterious ways". I'm still trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean.

Okay, I gotta go! Have a happy first day of Spring and a good Palm Sunday!

Me.