Holy Origami

It’s a new daily ritual: pleating the bandanna in a particular way so as to align the fabric in protective layers, slipping rubber bands around the cloth sandwich, stretching the elastic loops over my ears but under the bows of my glasses.

This folding of the facemask is holy origami, a prayer for salvation in every tuck. 

And this donning of the facemask is another step in the lengthening Litany of Covid—the practices we’ve quickly adopted and learned by heart, the steps we’ve memorized and can recite with as much accuracy as the 23 ^rd Psalm or the Lord’s Prayer. You know this gospel, chapter and verse: ¹ Wash your hands for 20 seconds (the time it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice); ² if soap and water are not available, use hand sanitizer; ³ avoid touching your face; ⁴ cover your cough or sneeze with your elbow; ⁵ practice social distancing; ⁶ stay home; ⁷ and now, wear masks.

This is the Holiness Code of our current situation. For anyone who has ever wondered how the rules of, say, for example, the Book of Leviticus came to be, pay attention to the times we’re living in. I suspect the evolution of regulations we’re experiencing right now—for the good of the community—is similar to how those ancient laws were born. Along the way they were solidified and codified into ceremonial shapes that may or may not have continued to serve the community in meaningful ways. (It would not serve us well if, when the pandemic is over, we continued to wear face coverings for the next thousands of years in order to commemorate the experience. But it would serve us well to continue some of the good habits we’ve been reinforcing.)

Holy Week itself is a ritual. We participate to remind ourselves of Jesus and the extraordinary actions he took to move a broken world closer to mercy, closer to grace, closer to God. Jesus himself used existing rituals as his starting point and infused them with refreshed purpose. Jesus did not erase the importance of Passover, a ritual that calls to mind God’s protection in the midst of tragedy. How beautiful! How timely! But Jesus enlarged that message when he offered the bread and cup as symbols of sacrificial LOVE that would come to be the defining ritual of our faith tradition.

The Last Supper. The Lord’s Supper. The Eucharist. The Holy Communion. It is the centerpiece of Maundy Thursday. And, like so many other things right now, the ritual will be different than we’re used to. But it will be no less significant. As a devotional practice, at the very least, I invite you to read Jesus’ story for yourselves in your personal Bibles or online at www.biblegateway.com. Choose from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Or read through them all. If you have your own copy of The Readings for Holy Week , a mashup of all the Gospel accounts, you might prefer to read through that.

And also, I will offer a freshly-shaped approach to Maundy Thursday through a Zoom gathering at 7:00 p.m. in which our College Hill congregation can come together through the power of the digital screen, unmasked face to unmasked face. Instructions for how to join us will come to you later today in an email, so please be on the lookout.

Be mindful as you move through your day. With every new survival practice comes an opportunity to thrive as people of faith. With every wipe-down, every scrubbing, every tentative step outside the front door comes a chance to offer a prayer, a hope, an act of devotion.

Masked for Good,

Pastor Chris