Heavy Metal Knitting

It’s a thing. NPR just did a wonderful report on this new phenomenon, and it is just what it sounds like; a competition between knitters who knit on stage with a live heavy metal band playing behind them. The World Championship was recently held in Finland.

You all think I make this stuff up, don’t you?

The event’s Facebook page reads,

“In heavy metal knitting, needlework and music become united like never before. On the same stage, accompanied by a million dollar guitar solo, with hair flowing in the air, there’s heavy metal music and knitting, shaking hands. Knitting to the rhythm of heavy metal music can be compared to playing air guitar – which is a Finnish way to goof around as well. In heavy metal knitting, the knitter becomes a part of the band, showing their best needlework tricks as the heavy riffs echo on the background. The knitter takes part in the jam while their balls of yarn and knitting needles swish through the air…”

First place went to a Japanese team, “Giga’s Body Metal,” which included five knitters who wore kimonos, kabuki dresses, and performed traditional sumo wrestling while knitting. Second place went to Denmark’s “Crafts With Ellen,” and third place went to USA’s “9 Inch Needles.”

Finland is a natural location for this world championship, as they have an inordinate amount of heavy metal bands, and apparently a lot of knitters. Sociologists attribute this to the long, cold, dark winters. I suppose that could drive you to either knit or take up the electric bass. So the unlikely mix of knitting and heavy metal music produces a wonderful, weird, and remarkable product born of the symbiotic blending of two very unlike things.

In a wonderful, weird and similarly symbiotic way, this reminds us of how God puts the Body of Christ together. He takes what appears to be disparate parts, each with its own separate function, and blends them together to form a remarkable thing:

1 Corinthians 12 The Message

14-18 I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

27-31 You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this.

How amazing is this! This tells us that whatever spiritual gift you have, it is needed, necessary, and vital to the functioning of the entire body. I love how Paul reminds us that it’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. Like a good marriage. Like an extended family. Like an office of co-workers, a sports team, or a surgical unit. Or a church. Each doing its own thing as they contribute to the functioning of the whole. Like heavy metal knitting! Who knew?

What is your part in the larger whole? Are you the eyes that see truth, the knees that bend in prayer, the feet that walk the mission field? Are you the cilia of the ear, filtering out harsh words, the aorta beating life into everything, the esophagus delivering sustenance (in Methodism, we call this Care Team Casserole Delivery) for the body?

Never forget that YOU are vital. YOU make a difference. Without you, the body/team/office/family/marriage would fall apart. So go today and be YOU, because you are vitally needed. We can’t be the body without you. God has carefully placed you just where he wants you. Thanks be to God!