A knitter's prayer

I'm interested in making a prayer shawl. I found a prayer by Janet Bristow. This is the part I like best (it's not the complete prayer). It's good for knitting anything, not only shawls. I had a beautiful white prayer shawl once when our son was about three. He liked to sit and pray with me when he saw me use it. The dog chewed it up one day. It's not the same wearing your beautiful shawl after the dog chomps a few slobbery holes in it.

The idea of knitting prayers into a shawl appeals to me enormously. I like to find ways to incorporate prayer into our everyday life. Such a small thing like lighting a candle at dinner each night and saying "Jesus is the light of the world" keeps my family mindful in an everyday way that the soul transcends this earthly life. I want prayer to be everydayish for my family. I don't want it to be done only at night, in bed, alone before drifting off to dreamland. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I do it! Prayer is supernatural, but I want it to feel natural to my family.

When I get a cashier that I can't stand, like the one who rolled her eyes and spoke rudely to my husband, or when we got the cashier in the restaurant who rang us up and talked with her mouth full of food, I pray for them. It almost always works. I don't know how, it just does. At the very least it keeps me from having a minor meltdown! People sometimes behave awful because there's something bad in their life. Praying for them is like watching someone's mouth when they speak. Sometimes when people are speaking to us, we aren't really listening. We think we are, but it's not unusual to actually be collecting our own thoughts and forming our own reply while the speaker is talking, and thus we're not truely listening but thinking of how we will respond while we're listening. That's not really listening.

Tonight my son asked to learn how to knit! He adds depth and breadth to my everyday thoughts.

Good God

Guide me through the

knots,

kinks,

dropped stitches,

split yarn,

shredded fringe,

dye lot mismatches,

pattern mistakes,

errors,

and the myriad other “issues” that get in the way of my centeredness!

*

Help me to see that these annoyances:

knotted emotions,

kinked plans,

dropped dreams,

split relationships,

shredded hopes,

mismatched friendships,

mistaken assumptions,

errant goals

are actually metaphors of life!