Hazelnut Reflections: various and sundry

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

various and sundry

My home computer no longer likes Blogger--I think Blogger's pages have outstripped my 4 year old PC's ability to process--so I haven't posted in awhile.

There's been a lot of stress and therefore much knitting. At a lengthy and difficult church convention I spent the time working on a Mariner's Scarf for Ministry on the River. Whenever I would feel my emotions start to get the better of me, I would focus on the stitch at hand. Knit, knit, purl, purl, purl. By the 2nd day of Synod there were four of us handcrafters at my table--two knitters (one with socks) and a pair of needlepointers.

In the end I had to frog the scarf. I frogged it after the first session and redid it, but found after Synod, when I sat back down to it, that I was making mistakes all over the place. I think too much negative energy went into it! Since I was using some leftover Red Heart I didn't feel too bad about just tossing it. It served its purpose of keeping me sane. I do want to get one scarf done for Christmas on the River; I'll just pick a different color, this time, to make sure no negative energy left.

In the meantime I've been working on the baby blanket out of Kooler's Encyclopedia of Knitting. I'm using a light yellow Lion Cotton, and it's working up quite well. I've had some funny moments working with the circulars--this is the first time I've had a problem with the Denise Interchangeables coming apart on me, when I added an extension, but after making sure everything was tightened they have behaved themselves.

Just finished reading a book (title escapes me) about the friendship between JRR Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. I had a bad night sleeping and just finished it in the wee hours. What jumped out at me was Tolkien and Lewis' commitment to having both intellectual and imaginative responses to the Gospel. Their theology of narrative, if you will, is that all good stories have a positive relaitonship to the Good Story. That put into words my thoughts about Harry Potter, etc. and why I believe reading books like Harry Potter, or Middle Earth or Narnia far surpass what often purports to be "Christian" literature. Good storytelling does not have to have Christ explicitly in it and may point more deeply to the truth of the Christian story by its subtlety and deeper thinking.

Let's hear it for the imagination.