Abba Mias and the Torn Cloak

A soldier asked Abba Mias if God accepted repentance. After the old man
taught him many things, he said, "Tell me, my dear, if your cloak is torn, do
you throw it away?"

He replied, "No, I mend it and use it again."

The old man said to him, "If you are so careful about your cloak, will
not God be equally careful with his creature?"

---- From the stories of the Desert Fathers

There's one thing about the stories from the Desert Fathers (Desert Mothers too, to be honest) and that is that they are pithy and carry a big punch line. No, not a funny one, like in ba-da-BOOM, but a punch that gets you somewhere around the solar plexus and makes you gasp for breath. So much wisdom carried in so few words -- it is mind blowing.

The first thing I thought about with the story was, of course, the reassurance that God takes care of his creatures, no matter how worn and torn they are. There are some who would say that one must repent long and heartily in order to be made clean in God's sight but I don't always think that it is God who requires that; more often I find I need it for myself.

Then I thought about the world in which Abba Mias and the soldier lived. It wasn't a world that just perceived limited quantities where if someone got a bit too much someone else didn't get the full measure. It was a true case of "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without," a saying featured on posters during World War II but which people of Abba Mias's time didn't need to see posted on walls as reminders. It was a world where there were people who had a lot but most people didn't have very much. Two cloaks would have been a richness, a whole and undamaged one would have been wonderful but a torn one would still have provided warmth and comfort even if it weren't perfect. It was a tough world and probably there were a lot of cloaks that were almost more patch than original material. That's just how it was. Jewish law stated that if someone pawned their cloak for cash, it had to be given back to them at night so they did not suffer. It was a humane law that I bet we wouldn't see put into place today. But then, we aren't the community they were either.

I thought about the rents in the cloak that needed to be patched. I remember my Aunt Edie's farm house. Not a lot of luxuries but it was clean, neat and welcoming. There were scratchy-good wool blankets that had patches sewn on to cover the moth holes but that kept me warm and had a scent all their own that I just loved. The patches didn't matter; quite often they were the same material that bound the edges. It was the function that was important.

I was reminded of patchwork quilts last night in our theological reflection where we used Abba Mias's story. My aunts, including Edie, had those too, usually crazy quilts made of bits of fabric from the dresses they made for themselves and their children, old shirts that were too worn to patch but had material in them still too good to use as rags or throw away, even old patched blankets to use as filling. It was so much fun to point to a patch that I particularly liked and have the aunt tell me where it came from. Something that started as something damaged and useless became something beautiful, a series of family stories done in cloth and thread, worn and torn things given a second chance.

The story of Abba Mias, the torn cloak and God's grace is the kind of story that wraps itself around my heart like my aunts' quilts and patched blankets wrapped around my childhood self, maybe a little scratchy but warm and comforting. The scratchy part is a reminder that I mess things up and needing to repent, kind of like the nag of my conscience when I know I've done something wrong and need to fix it. The patch is the repentance I slap on and tack down, hoping it will hold and cover the flaw. The color and pattern come from God's feather-stitching around the patch, mending it with love and care and making it whole and serviceable again. Eventually my soul becomes a patchwork of mended places, all repaired by God in a way that doesn't let me forget that there's a tear under there but doesn't necessarily call it out for the world to notice. What they see is the pattern, the color, the arrangement of the patches, little knowing the story of each, stories that become part of the fabric.

I have a lot of things that need mending, both internally and externally. Abba Mias's gentle answer to the questioning and undoubtedly hurting soldier gives me a lot of comfort as I know it gave the soldier. God can take the uglinesses and nastinesses and make something useful -- and beautiful -- from it. I just have to get out of God's way and let God go to it. Oh, and remember to say "thank you".