Weaving it all together

Friday, July 14, 2017

I’ll finish the week with another quote from Rilke’s poetry:

“. . . She who recognizes the ill-matched threads of her life

and weaves them gratefully into a single cloth . . .”

If you were to weave a cloth from the threads of your life, which threads would you choose? Would you want to discard or set aside some of them because they wouldn’t harmonize with the picture you wish your life would be? Would you eliminate threads which you think would be unpleasing to God?

Could you use all of it: all of the stuff, all of the mess, all of the regrets and losses and mistakes? That thread that is the one thing you regret the most about your life? Those things that you never would have done if you had had the wisdom and maturity of your present life? The shames, the humilations, the embarrassments?

Can you embrace it all? God sees all of it, you know, AND God loves you, AND Jesus died for you while you were still yet a sinner.

The great truth about life is that we cannot reject anything. Psychologists tell us that if we fail to embrace what they call our “shadow side,” that side breaks forth to manifest itself yet again in our lives.

Consider all the great Biblical heroes: consider what their woven clothes would look like. One of the things I admire most about Saint Paul is that he is completely upfront about his own shadows and speaks so eloquently about them. In fact, he seems to indicate that were it not for Christ embracing him, his life would still be a mess. “I things I want to do I don’t do; the things I detest I keep on doing.” No. His woven cloth is a complete whole.

Can we strive to do the same thing?

I don’t know enough about Rilke to be able to determine who “she” is in this snippet from his poetry, but if I would venture a guess, I would guess that she is Lady Wisdom, that wisdom that often only comes later in life when we can begin to make peace with the entire fabric of our lives.

That is something we all need to do. In God’s presence.

One final thing: notice that the poem goes so far as to say that she “gratefully” weaves all the threads of her life together.

Can we allow ourselves to experience the same gratitude? That would be a wonderful thing.

God bless you! Have a nice weekend.