Stitched to Wholeness | Epiphany 4
2.1.26 | Matthew 5:1-12 | Fr. Benji Davis | Epiphany Basics for Making Christ Known (Formation)
I hope these introductions are helpful—feel free to leave comments about what aspects of poetry it would be helpful to hear more about, or leave questions, or share your own ponderings!
I will keep this week’s note very brief, since I write this as we wait for the plumber to come help us troubleshoot our frozen pipe. Once again, this sermon is available on youtube via a Morning Prayer service HERE. You can hear the scripture passage and sermon starting at 9 minutes, 41 seconds.
One of the primary things I have in mind for this poem is the work of my friends who do fiber arts, especially tapestry weaving, but also my friend who is a quilt maker. When I first was getting to know them, I knew very little about the “fiber arts” and the ways that they used threads, yarns, shuttles, and fabrics to create beautiful works of art. I was a bit dismissive of their art form at first, if I am honest. With so much textile manufacturing these days, we get quite accustomed to elaborate designs with fibers for a low price. It is truly wonderful to hear about the process of an artist who simply loves their craft, and chooses to take time to do things the slow way.
My friend Jennifer Edwards (her website HERE) comes to mind especially. She will often spin her own threads for her weavings, and her passion for the practice is evident when she shares about it. This poem is a rather weak attempt at comparing our own selves and our formation to a woven tapestry. If I were to revise this poem, I would likely try to make the central image of a tapestry more distinct, and shorten some of the more pastoral meditations. Focusing more on a central image, and then adding a brief remark about how this image might make us ponder and think our own formation, would be a more effective, evocative, and interesting poem.
However, I didn’t write that poem. I wrote this beginning attempt. And the plumber is here, so I am not going to revise it for you, but you are welcome to fill in the gaps by imagining some elaborate, beautiful weaving as compared to some cheap, manufactured wall-hanging that you throw up in a dorm room. I pray that we all ask Christ to make us more like the former, and less like the latter this week.
Here’s to it being 50 degrees soon—turns out the California in me is not as interested in snow as I thought I would be, though it did cross my mind to enjoy its beauty this morning here in North Carolina…I don’t think I really did it, but it crossed my mind to do it.
Epiphany Basics for Making Christ Known: Formation
Stitched to Wholeness | Matthew 5
I am a portal, somehow;
solid yet see through.
I am a tapestry constantly
done and undone.
On all sides look, and see
how I am stitched and fraying.
I cannot choose how
I am woven,
though I can choose my weaver.
There is always a weaver
at work.
I am woven and unwoven in the dark,
for I am fickle and flit
in the breeze of every
passing fad.
Most weavers
make and fashion me
as decoration
hung up for a
time then cast away
as a shabby work not worth
a glance. These ones
come and go as I am unawares.
There is one weaver thought,
who, when I let him, makes
a blessing of me to all who see,
a work of art with beauty
drawing the eye of those
who willingly behold me.
I offer to others, then,
what the weaver himself,
chooses me to be, offering
his insights and his loves.
I long to be stitched into
such a blessing as this,
that all my vain stitches
add up to a wholeness
of lasting worth, far more
than a mere piece of cloth.