On Sunday, some people go to church to worship. On Saturday, some go to church to knit.
“We are knitting prayers into shawls to bless those who will receive them,” said Julie Tampa, one of 40 women who show up, knitting needles in hand, to spend two hours each weekend knitting and praying at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. “It is a time to become aware of God’s presence and God’s grace.”
Tampa is a participant in what has come to be known as the Shawl Ministry, a way the faithful serve the less fortunate by knitting or crocheting warm, colorful shawls they hope will literally wrap the recipients in prayer.
As with other crafting-for-charity programs, such as those that make chemo caps for cancer patients or toys for premature babies, the Shawl Ministry works to help people in crisis, such as unwed mothers, migrant workers and victims of domestic violence.
“There is another element to it,” said Vicki Galo, co-founder of the ministry, which has needles clicking from Maine to California and groups overseas. “Somehow, it benefits the knitter or the crocheter, too.”
In the process of helping others, the women help themselves spiritually. Knitters say the click of the needles, the tension of the yarn and the sight of the colors wind them into a meditative state. For Galo and many others, the combination of craft with contemplation was an awakening.
“You mean I can pray when I am doing this?” Galo said knitters asked. “It was a very new concept for women. And yet it is an old concept known by Tibetan monks and Native Americans.”
Melanie Fahey, a shawl knitter at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Houston, put it this way: “When I am working on a shawl, I am far more at peace in my own life. Everything gets done without leaving me feeling frazzled.”
Galo, a Catholic, founded the Shawl Ministry about five years ago with Janet Bristow, a Congregationalist. Both live in Connecticut and had been students at the Women’s Leadership Institute at Hartford Seminary. A teacher there encouraged them to combine their passion for knitting with their interest in women’s spirituality.
“I was frustrated with women being dismissive of their craft,” Galo said. “For me, it came with prayer. I was trying to get sacred with my hands.”
Initially Galo knit a shawl for a female friend going through a divorce. She showed it to Bristow, who made some suggestions–a touch of fringe here, a few charms and beads there. The pair then took the shawl to members of their women’s group, who wrapped themselves in it and blessed it before handing it over to the recipient.
Soon, everyone in the group wanted to knit shawls for people they knew who were ill or were grieving or about to enter a new stage of life, like motherhood. Before long, the pair began crafting prayers, blessings and rituals for each part of the knitting process–prayers for casting on, for the beginning of each row, and for the binding off.
There are now shawl-knitting ministries in Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Catholic and evangelical churches across the U.S.
Susan Jorgensen and Susan Izard, two knitters who brought the ministry to their churches in Connecticut, have written “Knitting Into the Mystery: A Guide to the Shawl Knitting Ministry.” It offers guidelines for knitters from the highly practical, such as how many skeins make a good length shawl, to the deeply subjective, such as what prayers to say before giving away a shawl.
“May God’s grace be upon this shawl,” begins one prayer. “May the one who receives this shawl be cradled in hope, kept in joy, graced with peace and wrapped in love.”
Even the stitches can be imbued with religious significance. Knit in sets of three–three knits, three purls–Jorgensen and Izard invoke a variety of spiritual ideas, including the Christian trinity, the unity of mind, body and spirit and the cycle of past, present and future.
“The pattern is very meditative,” Izard said. “You can sit there and knit without thinking about it. It becomes a mantra, a very meditative prayer. It is a very contemplative experience.”
