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[Back to index of February articles] Enfolded in Love By Eliza Voght The woman's life had long been suffused with faith and devotion to her church, but now she was worn down by illness. "She told me once, in supreme frustration, 'It's just fine to tell me God is with me all the time,'" Linda Pallett remembers her friend saying, " 'but sometimes I just want someone to put their arms around me.'" Her friend is now gone, but Pallett often thinks of her need to be enclosed in loving arms. Since last spring, Pallett and a handful of other women at St. James, Potomac, have devoted many hours and miles of yarn, knitting shawls they hope will wrap their wearers in love when a human embrace is not near or cannot do enough. With each shawl comes a card with a prayer and a personal note. "We might say, 'Wear this when you're cold, or when you pray, or when you're lonely. But whenever it is that you wear it, remember that every minute of every hour of every day, God is with you,'" says Pallett. The St. James’ Prayer Shawl Ministry has passed on at least 50 shawls, hand-knit creations given anonymously to members of the parish. Babies have been held in white shawls for baptism. Two older parishioners about to be married received a pair in complementary shades of gray. A woman, who always wore lavender, received a lavender-striped shawl. A shawl was sent to a parishioner's friend who was nursing her dying husband. The husband was so moved by the hand-crafted gift, he put it on and was wearing it when he died. And one young boy, entranced by the many colored cloths draped along the altar rail to be blessed on a recent Sunday, rushed up to Pallett at the sign of peace and - to his mother's slight embarrassment - asked for one of his own. She's working on it now, in his favorite blue. The shawl ministry at St. James' is only one of many that have emerged around the country over the past few years. Called prayer shawls, comfort shawls, peace shawls, chemo shawls and mantles, many of the knitted goods have been inspired by Janet Bristow and Victoria Cole-Galo, students at the Hartford Theological Seminary and founders in 1998 of the ecumenical Shawl Ministry. Cole-Galo and Bristow suggest knitters begin their work with prayers for whoever will wear it, and to pray as they work, turning their knitting into an act of contemplation. Their popular shawl pattern is based on groups of three stitches, a number central to so many religions. Interest in the ministry has mirrored a growing interest in knitting in general and in the connection between knitting and spirituality in particular. Books and new magazines aimed at young knitters have proliferated over the past few years, and the frequent linkage of the words "knit" and "hip" would have perplexed generations of knitters who learned the skill out of necessity. Whether hip or not, knitting - and the Shawl Ministry - retain a timeless feel. Women have worked their wooden sticks and yarn for hundreds of years, meeting some of humanity's most basic needs: to be kept warm, to be protected, to be soothed. Think of the child clutching a baby blanket loved with such ferocity it is more web than cloth. Picture the tentative new father awkwardly learning to swaddle his infant. Remember being tucked in at night. Pallett learned about the ministry when she came across the book Knitting into the Mystery: A Guide to the Shawl Knitting Ministry by Susan S. Izard and Susan S. Jorgensen at the Washington National Cathedral bookstore. On a Sunday soon after, she gave the first shawl to St. James' rector, the Rev. Cynthia Baskin, who was going on retreat and had been told to bring a prayer shawl. "People went up to her - I was one of them," says parishioner Beverly Bartolomeo. "I said, 'I knit, but not this kind of contemplative stuff, mostly hats for kids, I give them to hospitals. It just keeps my hands busy.'" But contemplative or not, Bartolomeo was taken with the idea of the ministry, and joined up. "I think of the lady who taught me to knit years ago," she says. "My mother also knit, and I have an afghan she knit while my father was dying. These things we hand down are just so important." She's knit many shawls by now. The current crop of five is living in her car right now, but they won't last long, they never do. There are always requests. Pallett prays with each stitch, as the ministry founders suggest. "I had a terrible time with my counting when I was making my first one," she says. So I knit, 'In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,' then I would throw my yarn over and say, 'In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.'" (To those who lack knitting literacy: Pallett was not throwing her yarn across the room in some obscure knitting ritual, but moving it from one side of her needles to the other as she switched from one stitch to another. To knitting-initiates: The stitch is knit-three-purl-three, and then on the next row, purl-three, knit three, a sort of modified seed stitch that makes for a soft, lofty weave.) Bartolomeo, on the other hand, is known among her knitting friends for her devotion to detail, and likes to knit with a stopwatch, just to see how long each row takes. ("I'm glad someone is interested in things like that," says Pallett, laughing. "I'm not, but it helps when people ask how long it takes to make a shawl." The answer is, a determined knitter who didn't mind missing meals and sleep finished one in 18 hours, but the usual turn-around for a 24 by 65 inch, fringed shawl is a week.) "I have to say, I don't pray on every single stitch," says Bartolomeo. "I'm more into counting to make sure I have the right number of stitches." But it is a spiritual practice for her as well. "I will say I stop between the rows to pray. I think God's in it. It's not us. You say, 'Take my hands and use them,' but it never became so tangible to me until I did this. It's my hands, but God's using them." The shawls are given anonymously, gifts from the entire community, not just one knitter. However, Pallett believes, the shawl should not just be handed to its recipient, but placed around his or her shoulders. She's not quite sure why it matters so much, the human touch, the cloth wrapped round the heart, but she knows it does.
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