Once upon a time, that Jewish mystic the Baal Shem Tov sent a group of his students on an important mission to help a needy couple in another town. When they returned, he was not so interested in hearing about their mission as about the minutiae of their trip—what they ate, where the slept, how they traveled, etc.

They didn’t understand the relevance of these details, but he insisted on hearing everything. When they related that one morning they sat down near a brook and drank some water there, his face lit up and he said, “That water was waiting from the beginning of time for someone to come and make a blessing over it and drink it.”

Maybe our only purpose in life is to pay attention to and appreciate everything that we touch and that touches us, in short, to bless it all. 

I had the privilege of spending the weekend with a friend's 8 year old son, Timmy.  Timmy is an active, curious child who lives in his body (as opposed to me who lives in my head a large part of the time).  This past summer he went to a summer festival where he was exposed to a very simple form of weaving.  He has talked some about the experience since then.  This weekend, as soon as he arrived, he asked his dad to make him a simple loom, like the one at the festival.  They made this together, and then he asked me to help him find some materials to weave with.  We found some yarn (some of which was my orange hair this past week leftover from my Raggedy Ann costume, but that's another story!) and then we hit the mother lode at the Dollar Store and brought home weaving ribbon and yarn that was glorious.  Timmy began to weave with focus and delight.  He made another little loom and began making small weavings for his brothers.  He began to look at everything as potential weaving material, and we had some laughs about that.

I showed him Al Canner's knot art that is on this website.  He was interested in how Al has knotted into his fiberart some fishing gear, and he especially liked the image of South America.

Even when he got a stomach ache and threw up, he went right back to weaving.  It was a delight to hear the wonder in his voice as he stopped dead in his tracks and said, "that red is so beautiful next to that blue".  The textures, colors and the tactile sense of it all were entrancing to him.  As we talked through the weekend, I told him of the floor size loom my family had when I was a child, and how much fun I had with it.  As his eyes lit up as I told him how the loom operated, I told him that we'd get a tabletop for us to play with if his interest in the craft continues. 

Tim's grounded excitement got me going.  I have always loved fiberart, but have not played with fibers for a long time.  This weekend has opened me up again to the joy of this craft.

I will treasure the fiberart that Timothy James gifted to me this weekend, and will hang it in my office to remind me that my task--if I choose to accept it--is to look at everyone and everything that comes to me each moment as asking for/offering a blessing.

"I knew him when" ---Timmy's art 11-07

I was blessed by the light in Timmy's eyes as he created.  I can only pray that I will have 1/10th the same sense of fun, mystery and focus with tomorrow's meetings, phone calls, office tasks, endless needs in my place of work.    If I can remember that everything "has been waiting from the beginning of time for someone to come and make a blessing over it/them"  I'll be a happier camper.

A few years ago, I was chasing around thinking that there was some purpose to my life that I didn't yet know and had to discover. It's dawning on me lately that there may be no purpose other than to be appreciative of the magnificence of the warp and woof of the weaving that is all around me, in me and through me.