Subversive Knitting

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Comforting Ourselves and Others

This month, I'd like to talk about comfort shawls, sometimes also called prayer shawls. These lovely garments are hand made by knitters as gifts for those who have recently been through a crisis or who have lost a loved one. With each stitch that is made, the knitter incorporates thoughts or prayers for the recipient. More than simply a garment to be warn in bad weather, these shawls are gifts from the heart, meant to be a symbol of the love that is knitted into each stitch.

In the movie Shadowlands, C.S. Lewis (played by Anthony Hopkins) tells a young boy whose mother has just died, that we don't pray to get what we want or to ask God to do something for us, as if he were a big Santa figure in the sky. "That's not why I pray, Harry;" Lewis told the boy, "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless; I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God; it changes me."

We pray to change ourselves. I love this sentiment, because I believe that prayer is a form of meditation that puts us in touch with the strength and compassion deep inside our own hearts. Although I personally don't believe in gods or the supernatural, I definitely believe in the power of prayer. It is a force that can bring love and goodness into the world because prayerful meditation makes us shut out the bad news and stress of every day life, and puts us in a position to allow our own compassion to come to the surface. I particularly love comfort shawl ministries because I see shawls as tangible representations of this compassion. What better representation of love, than a warm, cuddly hand-knit shawl?

Two of my favorite knitting books, Mindful Knitting by Tara Jon Manning and Inpsired Cable Knits by Fiona Ellis, both touch on this power that we can acheive through mindfulness. In Mindful Knitting, Manning writes, “The smallest action can send out a breath of fresh air to everyone we encounter. The world lightens up a little. As each person feels that little bit of relief—that little encounter with basic goodness and compassion—the world begins to lighten up a lot.”

What could be smaller than a single knit stitch?

And yet, by making one stitch after another,

we can bring peace to our own hearts and joy and lightness to others.

I hope this month's postings encourage you to take some time to knit mindfully, to touch the compassion in your own hearth, and to touch someone else's life with the gift of a hand-knit comfort shawl.