The Knitting Theologian

I am going through a difficult time personally. I find myself willing to accept the difficulty, the suffering, even, although I often worry about using that particular word, wanting to reserve it for something more important. I am willing to accept it because I believe it’s necessary and part of the path to holiness.

Imagine. Two years ago I never would have said that I was on the path to holiness, because I couldn’t ever imagine being worthy of it. God’s grace works in the most mysterious of ways.

One image has come to me frequently over the past several weeks, from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, the part about how Eustace, who became a dragon, was transformed into a human again:

Then the lion said…”You will have to let me undress you.” I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know–if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

Yes.

There is a blog I read, called Abbey of the Arts. The blogger hosts what she calls a poetry party, where she displays an image and invites readers to leave their own poetry in the comments.

Here is the image for this week: a heart-shaped depression in a stone.

And here is my poem:

Heart of stone?
Or heart in stone?
Entombed in stone, only now beginning to break free?

Your words are written there.
Love. God. Reality.

I have called you out of yourself.
I will cleanse you of your impurities.
I will take away your stony heart and
give you a natural heart, a heart of flesh
and feeling.

The many tears I choked back are simmering
below the surface, waiting to erode
my stony heart.