The elusive "it"

I think I've found it, or solved it, the elusive niggle that something's not quite right, that I'm out of sync with something. It is hard to quantify, explain, put into words, other than to say that praying felt like "shouting into a concrete bucket" to quote the inimitable Adrian Plass (I think), that I was somehow out of sorts, distant from God.

My answer to this "it" is as simple as the word, I realised yesterday that I keep trying to do several things at once: multitasking. Now this is fine, a useful ability, but a tiring one and not always the greatest in a relationship, not if the multitasking stops you from fully focussing on who you're trying to relate to. It's like sitting in the same room with someone, talking, but never catching their eye, never looking at them, hearing most of the words, but not bringing them fully to focus inside your mind and missing all the body language, emotion and tone. That's what I've been doing with God. I need to stop and spend some time with Him completely, not doing anything else, just being with Him.

This isn't to say there isn't some value in Brother Lawrence's ideas about being with God all the time through everything you do in the day, but it helps if at some point in that day you stop and relax and spend some time just being together. Simple though the solution seems, I doubt I'll sort this out overnight, I spent some time just listening to songs, singing along, 'worshipping', bathing in Him, revelling in who He is and what He has done. (While we're here, I know that everything we do is supposed to be worshipping Him etc. etc. and that worship can take many different forms, it's just that today that's how I was worshipping Him. There's something in music, in singing alone (or even better together) about and to our God, that is ancient and good and holy and biblical.) Anyhow, meanders aside, it was good, refreshing, I know feelings aren't everything, but it did feel good. Next time maybe we'll read the Bible together?

I've been listening to "Blue like Jazz" that my friend Nic recommended to me (I think it was her... correct me if I'm wrong), which I got from audible. It's interesting, thought provoking, needs digesting, will need to be listened to multiple times, or maybe I'll get the book and read it 'properly'. At first it felt a bit odd, drifting, just this guy's thoughts, but gradually themes have emerged and interesting ideas with them. It helped me to realise how I was dividing myself from God and not paying attention properly, not engaging with Him. That's valuable enough in itself to get from a book.

Tonight it's made me feel a bit doubtful of myself again, it doesn't take much to make me doubt myself. He's started talking about how we're not meant to be alone, which I know - all too well, and about community. How we could stop feeling lonely if we lived in community - shared places to live and lived together as a church, as people, how damaging loneliness is. He makes the solution seem so simple, get off your backside and go engage with people, talk to them, listen to them, humble yourself and be open for them. But what if you can't? What if you can't physically make it to see people? What if you can't make it to their meetings and groups? What are you supposed to do then?

Is it my fault that I'm sick and can't get out and talk to people and start creating community? Am I just not trying hard enough? Trying hard enough... those words come up so often, they make me worry so much, like things would be better if I tried harder. But really, tried harder at what? When are these words lies and when is it true? When do I need to try harder? Why? I know I need to see more people, more brothers and sisters especially. Sometimes I need to make more effort, but there's days and weeks and months where I don't have the effort to give. What then?

So I feel like a failure again and try to remind myself of grace, again.

mmm cake

Today, since we are still surrounded by acres of snow, I held a tea party to which our dear neighbours came and for this purpose I baked. I was really feeling the need to bake, as sometimes one simply does and in such circumstances it seems only fair to share.

I made some wonderfully nostalgic butterfly cakes and some 'chocolate crinkle cookies' (from the allergy free cook book), which went down particularly well with John-from-next-door.

Of course I had to get some pictures!
Enjoy, hope they don't make you feel too hungry. In other news my cardigan is now onto its first sleeve, I'm trying not to get too bored by plain stockingette stitch, at least it's in the round and on one 16in circular, so it's just knit knit knit away.

New year, new cardigan

I am pleased to announce that the vine yoke cardigan did 'work', it fits, doesn't look too silly/outlandish/hand knit and is wonderfully, beautifully warm in a way that can only be appreciated with this much snow and ice around. The Christmas socks were also a great success and I was incredibly impressed with the yarn - Socrates Solemate from Violet Green. A merino treat for feet with beautiful stitch definition and that doesn't lose a drop of the dye when washed, the colour is just as fresh, clear and bright after about ten wears and washes as it was when it was in the skein. They are also the most comfortable socks I've ever worn (sorry Colinette Jitterbug!), silky soft, smooth and looking as good as new. To celebrate the wonder of this yarn I ordered some more, in a colourway called "The Sea, the sea". Someone at Violet Green is obviously a fellow fan of Iris Murdoch since a new colourway in this yarn is called "Bruno's Dream" - gorgeous greens with the slightest hint of yellow.

I'm pondering what are the most Murdoch-esque socks I can make with the new yarn, possibly something inspired by the sea, I may go back and re-read the book to gain some inspiration. If I do the socks could be some time in the making as it is quite a lengthy novel, though I remember being utterly wrapped up and swept away by it on the first reading (sorry for the slight pun there, unintentional). Iris Murdoch's novels are so richly atmospheric and her characterisation magnificent, if you haven't read any of her novels do, borrow mine!

Returning to the slightly more mundane, from the literary, I'm working on a new cardigan, Peasy by Heidi Kirrmaier, a rather elegant top down number and perfect knitting for that delightful post Christmas crash (which we won't dwell on). It is a replacement for a staple of my wardrobe, the navy blue-goes-with-everything cardigan, since mine has developed interesting holes. I will try to darn the old one, but it is on its last legs, having bravely survived more than a year's hard wear. Anyhow enough burbling for today, I'm going to attempt to repair the sleeve of my vine yoke cardigan, some stitches appear to have come loose or something on the bottom of the sleeve and as we all know, a stitch in time saves nine.

Nearly Christmas!

How time flies when you're having fun... now it's nearly Christmas and nearly two months since I last posted, I am a bad blogger. For me I've been relatively cheery, Christmas has that effect on me.

My vine yoke cardigan from the wonderful Twist Collective continues apace, well apace for me anyhow. I've just started the left front, when I say started, I've done one row, but that counts in my book. I'm still worried that it won't fit or will be too short or won't suit me or will look silly, but even if they're all the case I've learnt a lot about knitting while working on it. Short row shaping now makes some sort of sense and it's made me look at garments again from a new angle, as anything knitted from side to side would I suppose.

I'm also doing some fun Christmassy socks in appropriately coloured yarn, though I have also fallen in love with this little effort from Drops.

Next job I suppose is to decorate a bit for Christmas, I keep running out of energy. I have about four times as many things I want to do, then some more I need to do, than I have energy for, such is life. I'm just hoping I don't feel too flat after Christmas. Anyhow, I should be getting my 40 (or 50) winks, so hopefully be back here soon, toodle pip!

Still life

I've just finished Still Life by A. S. Byatt and I think I'm in shock. Towards the end of this brilliant novel she delivers such an unexpected, sudden broadside to the plot that it has left me quite literally breath-taken. In order not to spoil the book for anyone else who wishes to read it I shall say no more on the exact circumstances and events. However, yet again I am astounded at the effect a novel, a world of people conjured out of the author's life and imagination, can have on a reader, who never meets any of this people, or enters into this world, except through the author's words. The reader never learns anything of this world and its people than what the author tells them and his or her knowledge is based on what the author chooses, consciously (and sub-consciously, some would argue) to tell the readers. Yet the people live and are passed from one imagination to another, to the extent that, over my reading of this and the previous work in the canon, the world she portrays currently feels more real than the world in which I live. I long to ask her, the author, the god of this paper universe, "why???" Why like that? It is incredible the effect a mere story can have.

Wow I haven't been here for a while. The socks are still on the go - just turning the heel of the second one.

Overall I feel blank, I don't know how I am, or what I'm thinking or how I'm feeling. Healthwise we seem to have hit a dead end, apparently my fibromyalgia is just getting worse. Where does that stop?

I've just got back from church group, so I should be feeling refreshed and fired up, pity feelings don't behave in the way they're supposed to eh? We were looking at John 4-5, two healings, so discussion was on healing. Yay. Just what I want to sit through. Yes, ok, I should have been joining in, I tried, but my brain feels so fogged up right now. There was an awful lot of theorising going on, which always annoys me. I know it shouldn't, but it does, it's easy to be dismissive of "suffering" in theory, but then it's easy for me to be a spaceman in theory, it doesn't mean I'd have a clue how to drive a spaceship. (Possibly a poor analogy? I plead brain fog). I didn't really have the words to defend myself, or put my point across. Though at one point I nearly cried. Particularly when one person kept trying to edge towards the sickness = you've sinned in some way argument. Yes I know I'm a sinner, but I'm also a forgiven sinner, through putting my trust in Jesus, who died for me, for us, to pay the price for our sins.

I just knitted (it was that or fall asleep). I did manage to forget my pattern but my amazing friend Fran texted me the details of the pattern I needed, now I just need to work out why I've got 4 more stitches on one side of my gusset than the other. Well done me!

Feel a bit better for "saying" all that anyhow, once upon a time Amy and I would have discussed it afterwards and I would have felt like I had an ally. Oh well, onwards, if not actually upwards.

Neon!!!

IMG_2136
Originally uploaded by foggyknitter

So I suppose this is why Opal call line of their yarn "Neon". It totally is, so cool! These are the latest pair of socks I started making, the ones I um... didn't quite mean to start. It just sort of happened. Yarn fumes.

For those with an interest in such matters, they are Broadripple from Knitty.com