Ash Wednesday--

Thanks to an email from Joan Lilja, the NE District Chaplain for clergy and families, I was reminded of the book by Ann Weems, Kneeling in Jerusalem. This is a poem titled, "A Listening"

Going through Lent is a listening.

When we listen to the word,

we hear where we are so

blatantly unliving.

If we listen to the word,

and hallow it into our lives,

we hear how we can so

abundantly live again.

So, today I am listening. I haved asked God for guidance in how to live out life faithfully during this Lenten season. So, I am listening for the word as to how I can live abundantly again--how to experience God in fresh, maybe not new ways. Do I work it out by disciplining myself to write every day? Do I spend time each day knitting prayer shawls and praying into that experience?

I don't know yet where I am headed with the Lenten journey. I think I just need to take the first steps, as I am doing here, and then watch for God's signs along the way. I am open to hearing God's word in my life however it may come to me. I am thinking it may come in the whisper and click of the knitting needles as I create shawls that will wrap people up in warmth and love. I didn't realize how powerful that process was to me as the knitter.

Last night I started my first prayer shawl. I spent time in prayer before beginning and prayed often while knitting. The process of "throwing the yarn" and having to switch from knit to purl makes the process so very intentional. Each stitch is the intentional choice of putting yarn over a needle and moving it from one needle to the other. There is a rhythm to the process, a sound that becomes soothing. The yarn itself takes on new qualities as it becomes woven together. The understanding that this piece of work will be wrapped around someone who needs prayer, who needs to feel prayer, will be in a way like God's arms wrapped around them is quite humbling. The process of knitting makes me a conduit of God's love and mercy and healing for someone. What a gift I have been given to be able to use my eyes, my hands, my heart to create an object that represents not just warmth and comfort, but love, prayers, healing, mercy, and strength.