Swaddled Penn

The Miracle Blanket

Friends,

During my pregnancy a friend of mine loaned me some maternity clothes for which I will be eternally grateful. She saved me some money and helped me look decent for work. The clothes belonged to her daughter who’d had a baby the year before. My friend has grown children and she had re-learned some new techniques about babies in becoming a grandmother, having been through the recent pregnancy of her daughter and a daughter-in-law. After bringing me the clothes, she presented me with a little plastic package that advertised itself as “The Miracle Blanket.”

My friend took the pale blue cotton blanket out of the package and laid it on my bed. It didn’t look like a blanket. It wasn’t nearly as cute as some of the matching receiving blankets I’d gotten. It looked more like the outline of a diagram for an airplane. It had wings and a sack at the bottom. She shared with me that since newborns are now encouraged to sleep on their backs because of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) they startle themselves with their reflexes. Remember that they’ve been quite confined in their mother’s womb for nine months, and especially confined the last couple as they grow. Thus babies need to be firmly swaddled. The miracle blanket is the tool to help parents make their babies comfortable for sleep time.

At the hospital where my baby boy Penn was born I watched the incredible art of swaddling by the nurses. What pros! They were terrific at bundling up the sweet newborns, making sure they were not just warm, yet did not thrash about and awaken themselves or hit themselves. Each nurse seemed to have her own technique.

When we got home, we soon had trouble wrapping our larger newborn in blankets. The plain one from the hospital worked the best for a little while, but was soon outgrown. All those beautiful blankets we’d been given were great for covering up, but not for swaddling. Finally, I pulled out the unusual “miracle blanket.” The wings nestle the babies’ arms next to their sides, then the sack holds their feet. The longer, additional arm wraps around several times to hold all in place. (If you need to see a picture, go to www.miracleblanket.com). Our baby looked like he was wearing a straight-jacket. Soon he was sleeping like a, well, a baby.

I’ve always liked hearing how newborn Jesus was “wrapped in swaddling clothes” (Revised Standard Version) or “bands of cloth” (as the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates the Greek.) Either way, Jesus was bundled up tight so he could feel secure and warm, and so his parents, I’ve decided, could get some decent sleep.

So friends, here it is July, and I’m thinking of Christmas. I can’t help it. God once came to us as a tiny baby who needed other people to take care of him, to make him warm and protected, to comfort him, to feed him, to change his diaper and to teach him about the big old world. What does that mean? It means that God knows what we need to thrive. We need love and care, even beyond the basic necessities of food and shelter. God grew up in Jesus to show us what love looks like. Now that’s a miracle blanket, the one I want to be wrapped in forever, and the one I want to share with others, including that tiny baby napping in the other room.

How about you? Do you feel wrapped in the miracle blanket of God's love?

Peace,

Rev. Betsy

A picture of Penn

Friends,

Here is Bishop, just before we had to put him to sleep, helping me with Penn.