Hearts Knit Together In Unity And Love

"And he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another." (Mosiah 18:21). What does it mean for our hearts to be knit together in unity and love? At the risk of grossly oversimplifying the wonderfully complex art of knitting, I want to examine what lessons we can learn when we consider what it means for our hearts to be knit together. In knitting, one thread at times goes underneath the other, and sometimes it goes over. Sometimes one thread is supporting and holding the other one up, and sometimes it is the one that is being carried and supported. When we choose to knit our hearts together in unity and love, we are committed to sometimes being on top and sometimes being on the bottom, sometimes supporting others and sometimes leaning on others. Having our hearts knit together changes the dynamic. We are not constantly trying to one up each other, nor do we live in some zero sum game mentality where another's fortune means our loss. When we are momentarily on top, we are grateful for those who are momentarily below us who are dedicated to supporting us. And when we are momentarily on the bottom, we are cheering on those who are momentarily above us and helping them succeed in any way we can. Service and favors and acts of kindness aren't points on a scoreboard or dollars in a karmic bank account, but the over and under stitches that help to knit our hearts together. When we do something nice, we are looping another stitch around that person, and when we graciously accept their service to us, we are allowing them to loop another stitch around us. Because of the meandering path of up and down and around that threads make when knitting, knitted fabric is far more flexible and can stretch in more directions than other kinds of fabric and can fit more comfortably and flatteringly as well. We could treat everyone else on some kind of quid pro quo basis, or an eye for an eye, or just mistrust and avoid people all together. But we will find that the more we choose to knit our hearts together with those around us, the stronger and more flexible we will be and as we see ourselves as an indispensable part of the fabric, then we will stop worrying over whether we have come out on top but will relish all of our opportunities to go over and under and through the threads of everyone else.