“What are you doing, Nana?” the small child asked.
“I’m mending the hem on your dress.”
“WHAT’s mending?” Her grandchild replied.
Is this word also gone from your vocabulary? When is the last time you repaired a hem or a button? Do you have needles and thread in your house? Did you take sewing in middle school? Our guess is that for many of you, mending and sewing are lost arts.
But even if you have never held a needle and thread, the experience of “mending” is an important part of the Christian’s vocabulary. The dictionary tells us that ‘mend’ comes from the French – to free from defects, to repair, to set right. And God certainly challenges us to mend relationships, using the life of Jesus as a pattern. Through Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, we are empowered to build and mend life-giving relationships that both imitate Christ’s life and connect others to Jesus. And also through our ongoing surrender to the Holy Spirit, we create an atmosphere of love that knits people together, or grafts us into Jesus whether we are like small twigs or large branches. God fastens us to an ever-expanding Vine that courses with the love of the Trinity and our love.
Here is some of our mending:
It was an autumn day. We had driven over a hundred miles, complete with construction detours and hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Our three preschoolers were beyond cranky when we arrived at John’s parents’ house. So John lined them up on the couch and read a book brimming with dramatic animal sounds. The kids were enthralled. “John, you really brought those animals to life and helped the children settle down. That was great—thank you!” Therese said.
John’s mother was flabbergasted. She teased us by patting herself on the back and exclaiming, “Boy. Am I wonderful! Call the television studio and have the president come and give me a medal!” Apparently offering and receiving affirmation was something foreign to Mom. She was taught that compliments would make a person have a “swelled head.” And for us, too, it was a new relationship skill based on a desire to build and mend our relationship. .. Since then, we have learned so many more things that we are sharing in our latest book, Mending Broken Relationships, Building Strong Ones: Eight Ways to Love as Jesus Loves Us. Check it out!