PRAYER SHAWL

Growing up, my son had a hard time being away from home. He didn’t usually attend sleepovers and when he did he would often call me up around 4 in the morning asking me to come get him because he ‘couldn’t sleep’. Because he had trouble sleeping anywhere besides his own home, his own bed, his weaning process might have been just a bit longer than most cubs.

When he was about 11, I made him attend church camp for the first time. I knew he would have a hard time adjusting to living in a cabin in the woods with a bunch of other boys he didn’t know so I prepared the camp dean and educated the camp nurse on how best to handle his anxieties. And before he left, I secretly mailed him the first of a long series of  ‘hugs’, long letters detailing how much I loved him and letting him know I had faith that he could get through whatever he was going through.

The ‘hug’ was constructed from several sheets of plain paper taped or glued end-to-end and then laid out on the floor under my outstretched arms. A friend or colleague would then draw the silhouette of my arms on to the page into which I would write whatever was in my heart. When he received my letter, he could read the letter and then ‘wrap’ himself up in my love. My way of bringing the comfort and safety of my arms when he was far away from home. I really didn’t know it at the time, but this was my version of a prayer shawl for my child.

Last week, one of my son’s friends began the long recovery from a trauma suffered several years before. In the middle of a long night of distress that accompanies such healing, she called my son asking him to come over to stay with her through her dark night. My son, as he had with so many other friends before, responded immediately and stayed to provide what comfort he could. He was very worried and touched by her turmoil and wanted desperately to help but knew, through his own struggles, that in the end there was no quick cure or easy path through the pain.

As he left church that next Sunday, he passed by his church’s prayer shawl ministry table as he had many times before. This time, however, for the first time, one of the ladies called out to him “Do you know of anyone who might need a prayer shawl?” Coincidence or intervention?

The prayer shawls his church ladies create not only have their loving prayers but also little Christian sayings embedded into and onto them. He knew his friend is an atheist. He wondered how she would take such a spiritual gesture but he felt the prayer shawl, just like the hug, might have powers beyond its material existence. He knows ‘things’ can be imbued with special powers when they have been gifted from someone you care about or created with intention and love. He decided a prayer shawl might be helpful to her healing and asked the prayer shawl ladies if they would make a slightly less ‘religious’ one for his friend, the atheist. Responding with love, the ladies happily agreed.

A few days later, he picked up her prayer shawl and nervously delivered it to his friend, worried that such a gesture might be unwanted but firm in his belief of its power. As he handed it to her, he explained what it was and how it was supposed to work. She held it close and cried. The prayer shawl had already begun working its special brand of magic.

Perhaps there is a good reason prayer shawls have survived as a symbol of comfort and solace over the centuries. Perhaps we humans are just superstitious. But in the books on Jesus’s ministry there are many stories that detail his followers and others hopeful of being ‘cured’ by touching his cloak. His actual garment was thought to have healing powers.

I imagine that Jesus, an observant Jew, would have worn a garment, called a Tallit, ‘thrown over his shoulders’ as God had commanded male Israelites wear during their long journey in the desert (Numbers 15:38-40). These garments, with requisite tassels on each corner, came to become known as prayer shawls. You may have seen these often white and blue cloths worn over the shoulders of Jewish men if you have ever visited a Synagogue or perhaps you have seen them in a painting or a movie. The shawls were commanded in order for the Israelites to be reminded of God’s commandments and, by extension, God’s favor.

Prayer Shawls are a perfect example of the syncretic nature of religion. Although very much a Jewish tradition, prayer shawls have become symbols of the security and comfort found in God’s love in the Christian tradition as well. In 1998, two women, alumni of the Hartford Women's Leadership Institute, seeking to apply their Feminist Spirituality founded a ministry based on Prayer Shawls. They promoted a program which encouraged women of spirit to knit, crochet or sew warm shawls for those needing comfort or solace or even joy and celebration. And with each stitch, with each loop a small prayer for the wearer would be imbedded.

There is magic not only in the intent and prayers placed into the shawl by its maker but in the idea of someone else spending so much time and effort to create such a thing – especially for a complete stranger who does not share the same beliefs. What we do for others benefits the doer and the receiver. From my perspective, gestures like this bring us closer to the Way. They remain a reminder that even perfect strangers care about us. One doesn’t need to be a person of faith to ‘get’ the love that is delivered with the Prayer Shawl.