Prayer Knitting

Every year, thousands of volunteers knit and crochet handmade scarves to go into packages for U.S. troops overseas. One of those people is 98-year-old Joan Mazzarelli. She has platinum hair, a pixie smile and on her lap, is a pair of knitting needles.

Since March, Mazzarelli has knitted or crocheted 527 scarves and hats for what she calls her boys and girls in the war. There was another war being fought overseas when she first began this task in 1940, during World War II.

"I knitted not only scarves, but socks and gloves, everything for the soldiers," Mazzarelli says.

She had a beauty shop back then and would knit in-between customers. These days she knits about 14 hours a day.

Mazzarelli says the thank you letters she receives today are not that different than the ones she received 70 years ago.

I just want to thank you for including your special gift of a handmade hat. I'm reminded of my grandma's crocheted hats she made for my sister and I when we were kids.

But, as much as she loves knitting for the men and women deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, Mazzarelli says she wishes they were home.

Until then, she'll continue knitting. For her, knitting is an act of service, a prayerful meditation.

The above article is taken from a radio story on National Public Radio. http://www.wfae.org/wfae/nprnews.cfm?storyId=132152168

Our church has a knitting group of women who, much like Mrs. Mazzarelli, prayerfully send off their handiwork to bless the shoulders, laps, heads and hearts of those who receive them. Every inch of yarn has passed through someone’s fingers and there is the hope, the belief, that the care of the crafter somehow gets transferred to the recipient of the craft. Lap blankets for the sick, prayer shawls for the elderly, wool caps for those who’ve lost their hair in cancer treatments – all these are more than signs of love, they are sacraments of the holy – visible means of an invisible grace.

I am often overwhelmed by the great needs of the world, but our knitting group reminds me that while none of us can do everything about the world’s plight, anyone can do something to bring some grace into our “graceless age.”

Righteousness Is Out of Fashion

You never hear the word “righteous” anymore. I’m not talking about its use a decade ago, describing something as “cool” (“The paint job on that car is righteous!”). I suppose the word was used a generation ago in churches to describe moral, upstanding behavior on the part of the Christian believer (You Bible scholars think of James 5:16, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much”).

Still, I wonder if the use of the word in the previous generation had the same connotation as its original intent. When Jesus said at his baptism, “Thus it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness,” I don’t think he was talking about moral, upstanding behavior. He was thinking of more than a standard of individual conduct, he had in mind the will and purposes of God. There was a time when we thought righteousness had more to do with purity of life than anything else (“I don’t smoke and I don’t chew, and I don’t go out with girls that do”). Righteous seemed to be more about what we didn’t do than what we did. Nowadays I’m not sure that even Christians understand what is meant by the word righteous.

One place to begin our quest for understanding is the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7. In the midst of this collection of Jesus’ sayings, we find him like a reborn Moses, issuing a reinterpretation of Mosaic Law. “You’ve heard it said . . . BUT, I say to you . . .” He pronounces blessings on those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” and he helps us set priorities, “Seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.” Matthew portrays Jesus as being especially concerned about this righteousness, whatever it is.

Eugene Peterson in The Message, interprets that “seek ye first,” phrase as, “pay attention to what God is doing.” I like that. Righteousness as attentiveness to what God is doing. That seems to be the right order of things. Instead of righteousness being a standard of behavior for me to follow, it is, rather, a call to tune in to the activity of God. God’s activity is prior to my activity. And attentiveness is both an act of will and an alertness of body. If I’m paying attention, like a runner at the blocks waiting for the starting gun to go off, I’m more than ready to do something. I’m not just thinking about it. I’m not just looking on as an observer. But I wait for the right cue before I dash off.

Maybe righteousness will come back in fashion when we start paying more attention to what God is doing, instead of obsessing about what we’re going to do next. What is God doing these days? Well, I think God is doing what God has always been doing – turning the world right side up. Look for calamity, catastrophe and suffering, and when in the midst of it all, you see goodness, kindness, peace and justice, there is God’s kingdom of righteousness. I pray it does come back into fashion. Wouldn’t that be righteous?

I have more I want to say about righteousness, but I’m not sure what it is yet. I’m just waiting for the gun to go off.

Spitting Into the Wind

In my recent study of Ecclesiastes I was struck by the paraphrase that Eugene Peterson uses to describe the futility expressed by the author. Whereas traditional translations use the phrase “chasing after wind,” Peterson calls it “spitting into the wind,” which increases the sense of frustration, and perhaps absurdity, reflected in Ecclesiastes.

At one time or another I think everyone has felt that sense of absurdity, that all their efforts were just spitting into the wind. In some of our schools where the numbers of at-risk children are high I have heard teachers question whether their work is of any value. Or voters cast their ballots with great expectations only to see their favorite candidate bend and waffle and compromise like every other politician before him (or her). So, some people give up voting, or teaching, or whatever it is they do in service to the greater good, disillusioned by their inability to make a difference. Yes, Ecclesiastes speaks to that sense of cynicism that, perhaps, all of us have felt at one time or another.

I remember a conversation I had with Father Roland Murphy, my professor of Old Testament, when I was a first-year seminarian. I was sharing my frustrations at making a difference, particularly in regard to evangelism. I wanted people to believe because of my preaching. I wanted to see the results. Father Murphy tolerated my youthful enthusiasm and angst only so far and then in exasperation said, “The results are not up to you. Your job is simply to be faithful.”

Sometimes a hard word is just the right word. Whether or not we can see the difference we make is not important. But obedience is. Whether or not the world is changed as a result of my work, my labor, my efforts, etc., is not something I can control. All I can do is be faithful. I can take the work that is given to me and do it as well as I can and trust God for the rest. We can labor for the common good and never see the results within our lifetime. However, that doesn’t mean our efforts are meaningless.

We are not Sisyphus, carrying our rock up the mountain again and again, only to watch it roll back down to the bottom. Ecclesiastes is only one voice in the Judeo-Christian tradition. There is also the voice of Jesus that in some ways seemed to be a kind of spitting into the wind. His wonderful re-interpretation of Judaic law was met with resistance by the religious authorities of his day. His way of peace was perceived as a threat by the civil authorities of his day. Abandoned by his small band of followers, his lonely death on a hill outside of the walls of Jerusalem seemed to signal the absurdity of life, as if it was all spitting into the wind.

And yet, here we are 2000 years later, quoting him, admiring him, trying to figure out what has made the Jesus Movement endure. Ecclesiastes was wrong. Life is not utterly meaningless. There’s more to it than spitting into the wind. Jesus believed there was more, so he remained faithful, obedient to the end . . . and beyond.

I believe we all have a vocation (regardless of our jobs) to serve the common good. And being human, we’d like to see the results. My professor told me that the results are in the hands of God. My vocation then, is simply to be faithful. And Jesus is the best witness to what that faithfulness looks like. That means we shouldn’t expect immediate gratification. We may even suffer for our efforts. We may be ridiculed, despised, rejected. We have to learn to wait and hope. Indeed, we need to quit spitting, and simply trust that the wind knows where it’s blowing.