On Mending and Musing

Sitting here doing a little mending, while listening to James Taylor on the old Bose.  Carolina is still on his mind.  And he is still advising that we "shower the people [we] love with love".

I am not much of a sewer as my mother did not sew and what little I ever knew of the skill, I learned the hard way.  There are few domestic activities wherein self-stabbing is fairly routine; but mending is one of them, at least in my experience.  And yes, I do own a thimble, but have generally found it more useful for illustrative purposes than for actual sewing.

Nevertheless, hems do fray and buttons pop off.  These two tasks represent nearly the entire range of my mending skills.  Actually "skill" is too fine a word for what I do with needle and thread. A more accurate description would be that I make rough repairs.

I do not really sew, I just take a stab at it now and then, and usually end up stabbing myself.
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As I was performing my basic mending tasks I thought about the word itself - mending.  It is only found twice in the New Testament:  Matthew 4:21 and Mark 1:19.  (And then only in the King James Version.  The NIV uses the word "preparing".) These verses are two different authors' accounts of the same event. Jesus, when he was first calling his disciples, came upon James and John who were mending their fishing nets at the time.

They were fishermen repairing the tools of their trade since it is pretty hard to catch many fish using nets full of holes.  Their nets were valuable, useful and costly to replace.  So they mended.

Mending involves taking something that has already been used extensively, so much so that it is now ripped, torn, worn through, or missing something.  It no longer "works" if you will.  

Wearing socks with holes in them can give you a blister. Wearing a shirt or a blouse with missing buttons will be uncomfortable. Cuffs  flap open, plackets gap.  Other things may show which were meant to remain covered.  Mending is in order.

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I have not always been skillful in mending other things in my life either.  Relationships have sometimes been frayed or even torn.  Some have been used so extensively that they have worn thin.  Others definitely have something missing - and things flap around, or things which should have remained covered are suddenly on display.

However, as clumsy as my mending efforts are with needle and thread, I do, nevertheless, make the attempt to mend.  But I only mend things which are still too valuable, too useful, too needful to discard or give away.

So it is with relationships.  One may need a new button of understanding, while another requires some darning, perhaps notes of appreciation or a gesture of kindness, where holes of over use have left the connection threadbare.

Mending is not my favorite thing.  I am not very good at it.  But I do it because to not do so means that items which would otherwise be lost to me are regained for use and enjoyment.

Taking the time, and making the effort, to mend a relationship can mean that something which may otherwise be lost to you, can be regained for mutual comfort and enjoyment.
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If you need to do a little mending, there is no time like the present. Some things are too important to leave frayed and torn.  Does mending work every time?  No, but it is still worth a try.

Hope your mending efforts are rewarded with good results.  Until next time ~ Marsha