“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God,
“Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.
Tell her that her sad days are gone.”
Isaiah 40:1
I can remember that my Nana had a blanket that kept her knees warm. My mother chose one with her favourite colours; a lilac tartan that recalled treasured family holidays in Scotland. I was a Youth Worker in Witney in Oxfordshire for a time and the town is famous for its blankets. My first son Joe was born while I was there, and I still have some of the knitted blankets that Church members made for him.
From a distance the blankets in the picture look like Welsh blankets covered in traditional patterns and yet they don’t hang quite right, do they? The colours are also far too shiny. Artist Davis Trivedy has printed Welsh designs on emergency PET foil blankets. We are used to seeing such blankets on the shoulders of refugees rescued from the Mediterranean Sea used in the world’s many refugee camps. They are used for immediate, life-saving warmth. The people that need them perhaps seem far away and remote. We never get to know their names.
Yet, comfort and sanctuary are more than first-response. It is being welcomed to a geographical place but also into a culture. Not a culture than it imposed but offered as a warm invitation that the newcomer can also contribute to. Welsh blankest are thick; rich in heritage, security and love as opposed to thin foil.
In Graves Gallery in Sheffield there is a huge textile mural called “Comfort Blanket” by Grayson Perry. He had hoped that it would be hung in an immigration centre as introduction to the ideals, history, humour and contradictions of life in the United Kingdom. I wonder what English, Scottish or Welsh ‘quirk’ your eye is drawn to?
I also wonder if you were to offer a blanket to those in need what patterns would it have? Do we only offer first-response or can we offer something ‘thicker’?
Can we allow others to add to the weave otherwise even the best blankets might become restrictive?
Lord Jesus, I think of those things that I wrap around myself that I take comfort from. Help them not hug them so tight that I cannot offer them to others. Give me the humility that others may have rich, cultural patterns that they may offer to me. Amen.
Suzanne Nockels