Editor’s note: This week’s post was originally published as a Marriage Moat. Lori writes these messages and sends them as weekday emails as well as posting them on social media. Throughout the year we’ll be sharing a few of our favorites.

We zoomed with a couple who are trying to navigate the uptick of covid cases where they live. She was unraveling the wool sweater she’d knitted, which didn’t fit. Part of me was sad to see her cable stitches unspool, yet she was clear. It was worth the effort to retrieve the soft fiber rather than go to the store and pick up an acrylic substitute. 

Her husband is a minister, trying to serve his congregation without being in the same room. He spoke about the laborious process of dismantling his sermon and readings from the hymns. Then he could record and reconfigure them into a fluid service.

These are examples of the common need to take things apart before we can put them back together. It’s messy. I am in the midst of reorganizing my sewing room, which entails pulling fabric and patterns off the shelves, tossing scraps and refolding yardage. I purposely chose a week when there would be no students. The chaos is not a congenial space in which to be creative. But my hope is that when I finish the ideas will flow like silk ribbons.

People too need to fall apart. When the pieces lay in shambles at our feet, we can choose those parts that truly fit. It keeps us warm to be spun from innocence. 

Before anything is restored to order it is very common for everything to be reduced first of all to a state of confusion resembling chaos so that things that are not compatible may be separated from one another. And once these have been separated the Lord arranges them into order.  Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 842:3

Love,
Lori