Can you find safety in a sweater? The last few days I've wrapped this knitted wool around me like a hiding place. Struggling with a cold and the chills, I've worn it to work, to school, to bed... and it's only the first week of November. It reminds me of my mother, who gave it to me out of her closet, knowing how hard it is to find good ones when we are only home every other summer. Mothers... in their finest moments they are a refuge from the way life batters us, but so often they too are a mixed bag. Out of their humanness they give so much, and so little. I see it in myself already. So much. So little. Forgive me...remember better things. And they will. They will remember both. I know I do. This sweater that smells of love and sacrifice and twisted meanings and intentions that fall short, I'm wrapped in a reminder of what I am becoming. And that is both a beautiful and staggering thing because I know both tremendous good and a great ability to hurt run right through the center of us all. If not for mercy, it would be our undoing. But the mercy. The love that always forgives, always hopes, that takes our pieces and poor offerings, and promises to make something good of it all, that is a refuge like no other.
