Lenten Devotional by Heather Gonzalez
March 25, 2017
“So do not fear, for I am with you…I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)
On a recent Sunday during the sermon, my brain started to wander.
Although I should have been listening more attentively, I suddenly started thinking of our church, which for me has been a sanctuary of love, caring, and encouragement to engage more bravely in the world. Yet over the last couple of years, others have been attacked while in their own religious homes. The violence of that fact grabbed my imagination, which struggled to comprehend how that would feel to all those directly impacted. Nine religious leaders in South Carolina killed for being black while in a Bible study in their church. Six worshippers shot in their mosque in Quebec City. Recent bomb scares evacuating thousands in Jewish community centers across our country and right here in Framingham. The horror of being terrorized while worshipping and congregating in a religious sanctuary is incomprehensible, and I’ve had to push myself to wrestle with that lately.
Luckily, knitting has come to mind, and Ellie Kell (without knowing it!) has offered a way forward. The physical space of our sanctuary is not what keeps any of us safe or binds us to each other or to the divine. Instead, it’s our loving community. Ellie’s beautiful blankets, made with “a prayer in every stitch” and offered with love to many lucky recipients, present a powerful model of an antidote to hatred and violence. The time and caring required to wrap someone in homemade warmth, beauty, and love is what victims of hatred, fear, and violence need. It’s what we as allies can offer.
We all don’t need to knit, but Ellie’s blankets suggest a symbolic way forward for everyone. Together we can reach out and strengthen loving connections with members of our communities that are threatened. Each of us can be a loop of yarn, humble and so small by itself, but when joined with others, loop by loop, we can knit together and create a warm and loving space big enough for everyone. Together, we can become an essential human blanket so much stronger than the individual strand of yarn from which it started. Looped together, standing up and connecting arms, we can become a sanctuary for each other when we:
o hold each other when mourning or afraid
o make and hold up signs of support for our neighbors downtown*
o offer baskets of tea and cookies to immigrant congregations
o join in a Palm Sunday parade of ecumenical celebration, with a donkey and costumes and music*
o cook a meal and attend a potluck to support fearful immigrant neighbors
o hold strong to our commitment to loving and supporting LGBT members of our human family
o attend a Framingham Coming Together gathering on racism and supporting parts of our community being treated unjustly
o learn about racism and privilege, and move toward becoming part of a solution instead of an unconscious acceptor of the status quo
o call and write our representatives to insist on just laws that respect the humanity of everyone
o reach out to refugees in our town and throughout the world to help them find a new home.
We can survive and thrive by knitting ourselves together. Thank you, Ellie!
O God, who calls us to be present to one another, may we knit together in love and hope with the knowledge that we can make a difference. Amen
*For more information on these upcoming opportunities, contact anyone in Wider Missions.