The Threads of Our Lives

On my way to church, I often listen to On Being with Krista Tippett on NPR.  This is my worship on my way to worship.  The topics range, but the themes include integrating the spiritual and secular, religion and science, all faiths and lack thereof, and I am challenged.

 Last month, I heard the interview with artist, Ann Hamilton.  She prefers to be called a “maker.”  She began her craft by knitting with her grandmother.  Textiles and tactility is important to her very being, spirit and skin. 

I confess that I am not a knitter.  I have “tried” a couple of times, but I am easily frustrated when I don’t get things right within the first few tries.  I like to be competent at what I do.  And if I struggle, I often give up. 

I am glad God doesn’t give up so easily.

 “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.”  (Ps. 139)

God is a proficient knitter and maker. 

Ms. Hamilton said, “That, when you’re making something, you don’t know what it is for a really long time.  So, you have to kind of cultivate the space around you, where you can trust the thing that you can’t name.”

When God knits us together thread by thread, God has a hope of what her creation will be.  But then, again, in the space of the womb, she may not how we will turn out for a very long time. 

“…the thread has to come out, and it comes out at its own pace,” Ms. Hamilton believes.

As creations of the Divine Maker, we are knit together before we are, and then we continue to add the threads of our lives, enhancing and changing our stories as we grow and learn and change.

God does not leave her creation to fend for herself out in the world without having a constant had on the needle and thread. The hand of God touches her skin as she gains scars and beauty marks, bruises and stretch marks.  And when things get all knotted, God doesn’t give up but weaves them into the whole.  The whole of her body, the whole of her spirit, the whole of world. 

God has cultivated the safe space of the womb and trusts that her creation will bring beauty to the world.  And when the world is unkind and ugly, God makes and remakes and will continue to do so until the threads of our lives are woven in harmony. 

Thankful to be #ShapedByGod