Art is a gateway to worship. As we worship during the next several weeks, we will be creating a work of art together. Each Sunday everyone will be encouraged to fold a paper crane in one of the rainbow colors. The cranes will be strung together to create a rainbow banner, which, when complete, will be a visual testimony of our Open and Affirming welcome, and a reminder of God’s covenant with all creation.
I learned how to fold paper canes when I was in high school. In Sunday school or confirmation class, we folded cranes while our teacher told us the story of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. We learned that because of Sadako’s story, the paper crane became an internationally recognized symbol for peace.
When I was in seminary, I re-learned how to fold paper cranes from a Japanese Buddhist student. She folded tiny paper cranes from 1” square pieces of paper and strung them together in garlands. The crane garlands became part of her shrine to the Buddha which she created in her apartment, and she also hung crane garlands over her door knob and gave them away as gifts. Watching Miyako fold cranes, I began to realize that the crane was more than a symbol of peace—that the act of folding a crane was in itself a prayer for peace. Those garlands of cranes were garlands of prayers for the world.
As rational adults, we know that objects are inanimate. Things have no soul, no mind, no thought processes. (I may be tempted to believe otherwise when the lawn mower works for my husband but never for me, because it hates me. But really, I know better.) The knowledge that objects are inanimate often leads us to the false assumption that material things have no effect on us. We think, therefore we mow. Or type. Or garden. Or paint. We work with wood and chisels or fabric and thread.
But what if our interaction with inanimate objects is not as one-way as we imagine? What if our engagement with material actually works a change in us?
An illustration: Having been given a guitar when I was eight years old, I learned to play it. It left marks on my fingertips. It created a pattern in my brain whereby I see notes on a page and my fingers play a melody. The guitar I got when I was eight years old played a role in creating me.
I’m inviting you to fold cranes with me because the paper and the act of folding will work a change in you. While you are folding paper into a crane, the paper will play a role in creating you.
We will fold cranes of many colors, and put them in a basket. And when we have all the colors of the rainbow, we will string them into garlands. And when we hang the garlands together we will have a rainbow banner for the entryway. And whenever we walk into the sanctuary we will see the banner that we made, that played a role in making us.
That is how art becomes a gateway to worship.
