Learning to Knit Myself

"The important thing is not so much what you knit as what happens to you while you knit it.  

Where the interior journey takes you.  What you find there.  

How you are transformed when you come back home." 

--Susan Gordon Lydon

This past week, S. Ann Marie Biermaier, the director of the Benedictine Women Service Corps, came to visit me here in Lacey.  We had a really wonderful week together, visiting with the sisters and with each other about how the program is going and how the people we know at home and here in Washington are doing.  Watching Ann Marie interact with my Washington sisters gave me a lot of perspective and joy about being here with each of these wonderful people.  Srs. Damaris, Mary, Nathalie, Margaret Ann, and Rosemarie all wanted to hear news of their classmates, and Ann Marie was able to tell them all about their Minnesota sisters.  All of them absolutely lit up as they shared memories and stories of their time in the novitiate together at home.  It was so fun to just listen to all of them and watch their faces shine with happiness - and I could picture many of the places they talked about, like the St. Cloud Hospital and St. Scholastica's Convent for the retired sisters of St. Ben's Monastery.  It was a gift for all of us to share.

Ann Marie also brought the whole community together in the evenings - we stayed up talking and laughing way past S. Mary's bedtime!  S. Lucy and S. Sharon shared memories of going to school at St. Ben's with Ann Marie, and Ss. Monika and Maureen reminisced about their visits to Minnesota.  So many of the sisters here are connected to my favorite place in the world, and I really got to see those connections come alive through Ann Marie.  The Tanzanian sisters also really connected with her because all three of them are so involved in education.  Ann Marie's visit renewed my vision of all the sisters here and made me feel so privileged to be with them, be loved by them, and share my humble gifts with them.

I was also able to reflect on my purpose here during Ann Marie's visit.  I had begun to lose sight of the meaning of my work a little while I was sick and not working - I was so lonely and I couldn't grasp the real importance of my presence out here in Washington.  I just wanted to be home because I wasn't helping anyone by being here.  But as I actively re-entered community life with Ann Marie to bridge home and here, I remembered how wonderful and fun and edifying life is here at the Priory.   I remembered how much I enjoy being here and how much I learn and grow and laugh every day, especially with my African Mamas (a term of endearment and "big respect" for my wonderful sisters). On Friday night, we made puppy chow and watched a video of Tanzanian songs and dances - we danced ourselves, right in our tv room, and laughed and forgot everything else for a while.  It was absolutely vivifying.

I also decided to start a new knitting project.  The group of ladies that meets on Fridays, the Priory Knitters and Spinners, make prayer shawls for people in the Lacey area.  After two scarves, I decided I was ready to graduate to something a little bigger - both in size and in meaning.  S. Monika gave me a book the Knitters use to prepare them to share the ministry of prayer shawls, and I found the quote that begins this post.  I've never been a huge crafter - I read, mostly.  But making something for someone else, something you can feel and hold in your hands and watch grow into fullness, takes me out of myself.  I'm not just turning pages to soak in more information about the world (though I still do plenty of that, too).  I'm giving my energy, my love and time, to someone I don't know yet, but who will someday be comforted by the presence of my work.  And not only am I able to give part of myself away, I also receive my own gifts.  Knitting is often a time to be by myself, to think and wonder where my shawl will go, and to invest my peaceful and comforting energy into the fabric but also into myself.  And knitting with the sisters and the women of the group is always a blessing - they willingly share their endless, kind wisdom with me. 

So I guess what I've learned this week is multi-faceted (thanks for the great word, Mom!).  First of all, working and doing and being actively involved in the community is central to who I am.  Without meaningful work to do, I am just a shell, and I have nothing to give to others or to myself.  I just get lonely and depressed.  But underneath - or maybe knit into - my work is my interior journey.  What I do is not as important as who I become while I do it.  And here, I am given such a priceless opportunity to delve into who I am becoming - I have time to reflect and such a hospitable environment to grow in.  I have extraordinarily rich soil to root myself in, to nourish me, and to support me as I journey along this path of life.  As I open myself to receive these gifts, I am also able to give them away.  This is something I've been trying to grasp since my very first post on this blog - true giving and true receiving are often the very same thing. 

Peace and love!