Palm pilots maketh churches lie down in green pastures

In a sense, Christian churches' jubilant celebration of Jesus rising from the dead at Easter is the most divine example of recycling. So it makes sense to kick off the Holy Week with a little waving of the green.

Lots of churches celebrated Palm Sunday with traditional processions of people waving symbolic palm fronds in a re-enactment of the way crowds are said to have welcomed Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. For a few suburban churches, those palm fronds made a modern-day statement about fair wages and the environment.

Christ the Lord Lutheran, Zion Lutheran and First Presbyterian in Elgin teamed up to buy 500 eco-palms for their Palm Sunday services.

While palms traditionally come from underpaid laborers in Central America who ravage a forest to harvest as many fronds as possible, the eco-palm movement pays workers a living wage and teaches them to harvest only the best fronds. Not only does that reduce waste, it also preserves the rain forest environment.

"It's part of what we do," says Beth Lawniczak, director of faith development for Christ the Lord Lutheran Church, which has been buying eco-palms for three years. "We have an earth stewardship team or a green team."

Buying eco-palms cost her congregation a total of about $3 more than the traditional fronds and "is well worth it," Lawniczak says.

Lutheran and Presbyterian churches are leaders in the eco-palm movement, but newspapers have written similar stories about some Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Church of Christ, Methodist and Mennonite churches.

The purchase fits into the philosophy at Zion Lutheran.

"Our congregation is very much into fair trade," says Marlene Daubert, who serves as a pastor team with her husband, Dave Daubert. Their church sells fair-trade goods such as coffee, tea, chocolate, rice, sugar and olive oil, and sponsors an open-mike night on the first Saturday of every month, where fair-trade products accompany the musical acts.

"It's not a handout, but a hand up," Marlene Daubert says of the church's involvement in fair-trade programs. "We'll keep doing what we're able to do."

While First Presbyterian embraces other fair-trade products, this Palm Sunday was the first venture into eco-palms. The congregation asked for it.

"Their passion for mission really has challenged me," says Rev. Jan Kennedy. "This (the palm program) is one way, another way, we could live out and practice our beliefs."

Buying eco-palms is "a justice issue," Kennedy says. "It's a small piece in the puzzle of erasing poverty in the world."

All three churches are active in the community, taking on social and environmental problems in Elgin as well as worldwide.

"We're always looking for ways," says Lawniczak, who notes that her church even grows a plot of native prairie plants in its "Prayer Path."

Maybe churches across the suburbs will move from eco-palms to sweat-shop-free choir robes to environmentally sound bamboo crosses.

Palm Sunday is over, but it's not like the eco-palms are done giving back to the people and the environment. They will be recycled.

"People take them home and save them," Marlene Daubert says. "At Ash Wednesday next year, people will bring them in and we'll burn them and use them."

In a season of rebirth, that's sure to earn them a Hosanna.