Starting Lent
The smell permeates your hair, your coat, the clothes you are wearing. Like a campfire, but not quite as familiar, the smell of burnt palm fronds has an incredible ability to linger. The first time I burnt palm fronds I was in college, and another student and I were assigned to make ashes for Ash Wednesday. Neither of us had any idea what we were supposed to do. The chaplain we worked for explained, “It’s easy: Take the palm fronds we saved from last Palm Sunday, burn them, and then grind them up.” Easily said, but accomplishing the task was a little more challenging.