From the Chaplaincy

Granny Pat’s Blanket

Don’t you just love it? Look at those individual squares! My children used to debate which their favourite was, and do you know what? They could never reach a firm decision. Every square, perfectly crocheted with a different combination of colours, was just as beautiful as every other – no competition! Granny Pat gifted a blanket to every grandchild and their parents – nine in total – and each took the best part of nine months to complete. 

Nowadays, those grandchildren are now parents themselves, and each has a ‘Granny Pat Blanket’ to grace their home, tossed over a coach or draped across a bed. Threaded through the making of each of these blankets is love, devotion, generosity, commitment, purposefulness, creativity, excellence and beauty. 

Now, I love metaphors, and ‘Granny Pat’s blanket’ is a ‘goody’ when it comes to comparing each of those squares with the inner self, the true substance, of each individual. 

You could say that Granny Pat followed a particular crochet pattern to create each square. In the same way, the spiritual selfhood of each individual is patterned after God, in His image and likeness. We attribute qualities such as goodness, love, wisdom, compassion, mercy and many others to the Divine. We reflect God’s expression of His own goodness, and this is how God identifies each of His children. This is what threads through our individuality. 

Each square in each blanket is uniquely beautiful, and is an integral, indispensable part of the whole. Likewise, every one of us occupies a niche in God’s family that is original, diverse, distinct, unique and totally beautiful. 

Just as Granny Pat’s blanket needs nothing added to it, nothing removed, and needs nothing improved, so each of us has an ‘ideal’ character. That ‘ideal’ is perfect. Our innate goodness is complete and intact. Nothing needs to be added. Nothing needs to be removed. Nothing needs to be improved. Let’s wake up to those beautiful, spiritual qualities threading through our individuality, love them, appreciate them, and actively express them.

The Bible – Ecclesiastes 3:11 – God has made everything beautiful for its time. 

Genesis 1:31 – God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. 

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 527:4 – 

Man is God’s reflection, needing no cultivation, but ever beautiful and complete.

Warm wishes for a beautiful Spring holid

The Chaplaincy Team