Tying the knot...

It is a while since I blogged on here, I know, for all kinds of reasons. It is not an oblogation of course (sorry!!) and writing blogs should not be a chore, so I don’t feel guilty, but I do miss writing, so maybe I will try to do it more often.

Me and Emma, together almost 2 years!!! Amazing really. And because we are engaged, I guess it is inevitable that people occasionally asked me whether we have “any plans”, or "When are you two going to tie the knot?"

My response to that has been that it will happen when it is meant to happen, when circumstances allow. But I was musing on what the question means? Knots secure things, it is true, but our lives are so woven together already, that it is very hard to see the patchwork we have already created coming unravelled. I think maybe in church life, people often like to see things neat and tidy and conforming to the norms. i.e. If people have been engaged for a year, then surely they will get married at such and such a point or at least set a date. And that may be behind one or two of the comments I get sometimes. It just isn't always that easy, when circumstances are like ours, living 8000 miles apart, each of us with our three kids to consider, and not in a position to move to the other country at present.

I have pondered on the fact that the trouble with knots is that they can come undone, can't they? I have my own personal experience of that, sadly. And I always remember reading a book called "The Weight of Water" by Anita Shreve. It was a story of a married couple who on the surface look very solid and in love, and in the net of whose lives, lots of other people are caught up. But in the wake of a tragedy, their life together falls apart, and the author talks of it as a knot in the net coming undone, and everything they had being lost, as the net unravelled.

A new friend has recently given me lots of information about “tying the knot” and where that saying came from. Apparently, according to some article on the internet (or rather, an advert for wedding paraphernalia), "'tying the knot' has various sources. One source believes it stems from the betrothal knot. Rather than the now common engagement ring, history shows that most jewelry was in imitation of knotted cords worn by primitive people around fingers, ankles, wrists and other body parts. Additionally, in Persian and Iranian wedding ceremonies the bride and groom would join hands under a curtain separating the two. A piece of cloth would be wrapped around them and tied with a symbolic knot. Finally, a twist of yarn is wrapped around the couple seven times, then around the knot seven times. More current is the Mexican Catholic practice called lazo, in which a cord is draped around the shoulders of the bride and groom. The cord is then bound by a cross to signify the couple being joined by God. Thinking about it, I remember a similar ceremony at a Greek Orthodox wedding ceremony I attended in Cyprus, years ago.

Various cultures throughout the world have their own ideas of matrimony as "tying the knot." The lovers knot has been an emblem in marriage from the remotest times. It is symbolic of love and duty, and represents an indissoluble union in many societies. In some African cultures, long grasses are braided together and used to tie the hands of the groom and bride together to symbolize their union. In India delicate twine is used in the Hindu Vedic wedding ceremony to bind one of the bride's hand to one of the hands of the groom."

And in Celtic traditions, the idea of a knot tied is important. A Celtic knot is by no means simple. Celts sensed that at the heart of the universe is a level of complexity that cannot be explained by a simple one dimensional theory. So my friend has said that a Celtic knot is a call to humility in the face of overwhelming and mind-boggling complexity.

An old minister at my church used to talk about tapestries. He said if you looked at the back of a tapestry, you could be forgiven for thinking it would look a total mess from out front, as there would be many knotted threads, a myriad of different colours with no overall pattern, perhaps even loose threads in various places. But turn the thing round and view it from the front, and you see the whole picture, see beauty in it, see the point of the design.

So I think I prefer the idea of being woven together or "tapestried" in relationship, and one day in marriage, by allowing the various circumstances of life to be opportunities for us to intermingle, in big ways and small.

When shall we tie the knot? Perhaps I should start saying that I don't know but that we are already being woven together, or made into a tapestry. Or maybe that would lead to more questions... Like, Jo, have you lost the plot?