A few years ago, my wife Joan took up her ministry. She knits prayer shawls.
With the onset of chronic leukemia, Joan didn’t have the energy to continue some of her previous volunteer activities. She hadn’t done much knitting for years. But shortly after her diagnosis, her friend Bev Milton knitted Joan a blue prayer shawl.
I soon learned to recognize when Joan was feeling low -- she wrapped herself into that blue shawl.
Joan set herself a goal, to knit one prayer shawl a month. Sometimes she gets ahead of herself -- she’s currently knitting October’s shawl.
The skeptical side of me has doubts about the value of a prayer shawl. Granted, wool is warm and cuddly all by itself. But it is inanimate. It is nothing more than the hair cells of a sheep -- or, sometimes, of their camel-cousin llamas and alpacas in the Andes -- twisted together into a knittable yarn. The cells have no more life than my fingernail clippings. They do not, they cannot, carry information with them.
And yet there is something warmer, more comforting, about a shawl that has been knitted with love and compassion than there is in, say, a synthetic microfiber blanket.

Laying on hands
In our congregation, the shawls that Joan and others knit receive a blessing before they’re given out. A dozen or more shawls are laid out, draped over the seat backs in the rows. Worshippers lay their hands on the nearest shawl while reciting words that speak of hope, consolation, caring. Those who can’t reach a shawl rest a hand on someone who has. Thus everyone is connected, a transmission line of goodwill.
Dead sheep cells don’t know that. But people who receive those shawls say that they can feel the caring when they drape the shawl around their shoulders.
I was given one myself, when I smashed my elbow a few years ago. It wasn’t one of Joan’s. But I know I felt something.
I have doubts -- misgivings, perhaps -- about intercessory prayer. You know, the kind where you ask an old man in the sky to do something you can’t do yourself. Cure that cancer. Heal that heart. Mend that mental illness. Send down that cloud with the silver lining…
I no longer believe in a fairy godmother with a magic wand that goes “Poof!” Nor do I believe in the power of the human mind to bend spoons or shrink tumours. I don’t deny occasional miracles; I simply deny that we humans can call up miracles on demand.
Yet increasingly I believe that there is more to us than chemical elements and DNA. When I open up my heart to let others into it, something sometimes happens. Something good.
So when a number of us raise the same thing to the top of our thoughts -- even if only for the length of a liturgy -- why shouldn’t something happen there too?
Maybe someday we’ll have the forensic skills to identify subtle changes in the chemistry of wool, of a warm drink, of a get-well note, that are brought about by being handled with love.
Until then, I have to accept that Joan’s prayer shawls consist of more than just wool.
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Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
        To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN

What? No mail at all about last week’s column? Okay, it wasn’t a pleasant subject, and perhaps you -- like me -- were too appalled at “man’s inhumanity to man” (or woman, in this case) to venture expressing a response.
I still think forgiveness is a learned skill, the most of us don’t practice enough.

PSALM PARAPHRASES

Speaking of forgiving, the writer of Psalm 52 was not in a particularly forgiving mood.

1   You boast about beating your competitors; 
you brag about evading taxes; 
you use other people's money for leveraged financing.
2   You think you're worth millions. 
But everything you do exposes your moral bankruptcy.
3   You'd rather lord it over your neighbors than love them; 
you'd rather knife your employees than nurture them.
4   You're a bundle of malevolent reflexes.
5   Someday, you will get what you deserve. 
Your spouse will leave you, your children will despise you, your colleagues will avoid you. 
Your empires will come crashing down around your shattered ego.
6   Even those you exploited will laugh at you.
7   They'll say, "How the mighty are fallen!" 
They'll laugh, "The bigger you are, the harder you fall!"

8   I'm not powerful or successful. 
I'm a child compared to you. 
But I can still laugh in the rain and sing in the sunshine. 
I ride my roller coasters in the park, not in the stock market. 
I'd rather hold a hand than hold a meeting.
9   What I do, I do for God. 
If any credit is due, I give it to God. 
And God frees me to enjoy the goodness of living.

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah – the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” – ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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