Finished E's Winter Hoodie

Ella picked out the yarn for this sweater, but I talked about that in an earlier post.  I had the pocket knitted up in August--but stopped for other projects and, well, I avoid sleeves for some reason...they weren't that bad.  So when I started knitting this again, we were on our way for a Lutheran Confessions class...and Ella noticed I was knitting on it and said "Looks like candy corn mommy."  I couldn't tell from the yarn that it was self striping, and I have to admit, she chose a good yarn.  It would go with anything and certainly be easy to wear as play clothes.

We were driving to Bristol one day for errands and I had taken the hood out to work on as Keith drove.  We got out to go shopping and when we returned and sat ready to take off I hear Ella behind me,  "KNITTING, mommy."  It was an order.  Keith laughed so hard, and then asked me how long I had been working on that statement with her.  It was funny.  She wanted her sweater done.

Even though the yarn was Noro, it was not their best yarn--apparently spun so lightly that it broke apart lots of times and I had to re-weave it back in.  This sweater has no seams at all.  The lower half was done on circular needles, the sleeves worked separately on double pointed needles and then incorporated into the top half.  The pattern is the Wonderful Wallaby by Carol Anderson...and was a most easy, logically-written pattern.  I was the one who added the difficulty of the purple trim.  Most of all, Ella already loves it.  After begging to try it on last night, she absolutely did not want to take it off...stomped her two-year-old insistent foot and started to cry when I took it off.  Deidra says she's the most charming crier too--she wells up and never has an unfortunate look...it's very effective, just not on Mommy.  Most of the time.

Here it is Tuesday...

Well, I was planning on showing my finished hoodie for little bunny ella.  But the ends still need to be weaved in so I'll wait until later this week.  I spun some rather nice colored yarn last week, or was it the week before, and I'm endeavoring to do the stranded colorwork I admire...
Here's the yarn:

And this last weekend, we went to visit my NC parents in the mountain side of that state.  Mom is working on a very cute piggy bank for Ella.  And we found an antique set of Lincoln Logs in the toy collection upstairs.  We were amazed and told her to wrap that up and come play on Christmas.  She's a very good consignment shop and yard sale shopper.  When I looked up a similar set in Back to Basic toys, it was $119.00.  What a find she made.

We had early Thanksgiving with family and all the trimmings.  Aunt Bobby came over from the assisted living and Ella cued right in to her--got right on her reluctance to play and tried to take her hand and pull her over to the toys on the floor.  She is engaging.  And then she used her name, over and over and when that didn't bring the smile, she crawled up in her lap.  That worked.  She knew just how to do it better than an adult and didn't give up the first time.  Nursing homes should put our two-year-olds to work.  Just pour the toys in the center of the floor and let them go.  That would probably be illegal, but maybe we could shift a mommy play group.

Friday Five: Thanksgiving Edition

The Cure

Lying around all day
with some strange new deep blue
weekend funk, I'm not really asleep
when my sister calls
to say she's just hung up
from talking with Aunt Bertha
who is 89 and ill but managing
to take care of Uncle Frank
who is completely bed ridden.
Aunt Bert says
it's snowing there in Arkansas,
on Catfish Lane, and she hasn't been
able to walk out to their mailbox.
She's been suffering
from a bad case of the mulleygrubs.
The cure for the mulleygrubs,
she tells my sister,
is to get up and bake a cake.
If that doesn't do it, put on a red dress.

--Ginger Andrews (from Hurricane Sisters)

So this Friday before Thanksgiving, think about Aunt Bert and how she'll celebrate Thanksgiving! And how about YOU?

1. What is your cure for the "mulleygrubs"?  Making something--comfort food like bread or brownies...or knitting a sweater or hat...making a quilt used to be my answer.  Wearing a red dress would make me feel conspicuous, but I admire the women who do that.  I suppose wearing a dress on an ordinary day at all would help my mulleygrubs.

2. Where will you be for Thanksgiving?  At home.  My husband and I usually invite friends for the day...sometimes if they have plans we just cook anyway.  He is usually on call (he's a nurse anesthetist in surgery) the day after and is this year as well.  We have Thanksgiving early with one of the families too.  So by December, I may be a stuffed turkey myself.  I'd love to be part of a cooking effort for a free meal--this area is just not that big.

3. What foods will be served? Which are traditional for your family?  Turkey, cranberry sauce, waldorf salad, sweet potatoes and dressing of course--it has to be crunchy on top and soaked in turkey juices too.  Traditional cornbread with regular breads thrown in too...  One time my mom and I went down to see my nanny but when we got there there was a box of Stove Top for the dressing and she had pre-cooked chicken or something.  That sent us rushing to the grocery store so that we could make it like she used to.  


A side note here to say that I also really love the hymns that are sung around thanksgiving:  Now Thank We All Our God, We Gather Together, and For the Beauty of the Earth...on Come Ye Thankful People Come that I found a few years ago by Quincy Choral Society

4. How do you feel about Thanksgiving as a holiday?  Could we have it every other month?  I'd like to dedicate a day to give thanks each season.  Oh, I guess I could do that.  Just seems more special because it is a holiday surrounded by the tradition of giving thanks to God for a harvest.  And no one needs presents, it is just one of those days that makes me smile, despite its rather ironic origins.  And it's so nice to share it with Ella--she asks every evening to read the Emily's Thanksgiving book, and there's a spot where I ask her what she's thankful for and each day it's something different---Daddy, upstairs, Morrison and Fiona (our dogs), candy, playgrounds...

5. In this season of Thanksgiving, what are you grateful for?  Husband and child, home, friends, being a child of God, having freedom to discuss theology and think out loud with people, family, and moments of peace.

BONUS: Describe Aunt Bert's Thanksgiving.  I have a feeling that she may get up and bake a rum cake or two like Sook from A Christmas Memory.  And she might even have some of that cake and get over those mulleygrumps.  Maybe she'll make rum cake for the whole town.  And send one to the president.

Finally One Peace I Get

In the course of e-mail conversations sometimes I hit a wall, where I'm not sure if I'm "qualified" to give the answer.  I often go to my Bible and search the concordance to find what the topic is and how it is covered. Sometimes I go back to the Small Catechism too or to the Large Catechism, which now has even more underlined.  After studying them again, I'd say they are solidly aligned with the Gospel.  I chew on what is there for a while in my free time (which most of the time is from 5-7 in the morning) and still I am not sure I can communicate it to the point where anyone else will understand.  (Of course even giving that early rising time and meditation, I'm not verbal until near 10 a.m. without a pot full of coffee.)

My awakening to the Holy Spirit happened about age five, at least as far as I can recollect.  But last night at Lutheran Confessions Class what I almost got my arms around is the part about the Holy Spirit working through me as a conduit.  I sat there listening to my own confession and heard finally what I'm trying to explain now.  It is my only work to listen and succumb to the Spirit's nudgings in my own life--sometimes as simple as reaching out and being God's hands for someone or washing someone's feet and that has not often been a problem.  But sometimes I do or say something that I didn't know I knew--I make a phone call (and my family especially knows how rare that is) or write something to reach out and tell someone what has been given to me to say by the Spirit.

A few years ago, after pulling through a really tough time, I did do some study on the Advocate that culminated in the understanding that Christ, human and divine, left us with the Holy Spirit.  In fact this morning I was thinking, He didn't want to leave, but he knew that on his leaving, we too would receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  And that the special province of the Holy Spirit is being everywhere at once, like God above.  John 16:7 "Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you."  While he could only be in one place, the Spirit is an Advocate for all living beings and can work through human beings however good a conduit for the Spirit they have been led to make of themselves.  Where the world rules--where there is so much corruption and evil, of course the Advocate can try to move people, but mostly the Spirit works through weak, common people who don't have much confidence even in their own ability to follow God's will.

When I look for the answer to "why isn't God doing something about THIS" and there is glaring evil staring me in the face, I didn't have an answer before.  But when I look at how the Spirit works in this world, I feel like now I do have an answer.  Jesus said in John 16: 28 "I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father."  There must be someone(or people) in the midst of that horror through whom the Holy Spirit can do God's work.  If there are not, there is no deux ex machina for us.  Bad things happen to a lot of good people--sometimes even devout people.  Why is this possible?  Sometimes there is not another person in the area for the Holy Spirit to work through.  I've heard people talk about angels walking among us, and while I think that is something I'd like to talk about sometime, I think instead we (meaning people of God in whatever sense we make of that) are to do the moving into that evil to let God use the Holy Spirit to work through us.  We are the whole amazing thing and yet are not--vessels for the Holy Spirit to use.  Christ does not come again until the Second Coming.

So when there are holocausts and genocide and we ask where God is in the midst of this world's evil, we see afterwards how many people had mercy and hid people in their own homes, how many lost their own lives for the chance to save one person.  I wrote a bit about this when I was reading the book written by a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.  But it is amazing how many stories each person has about how something inexplicable in fact happened to them or to someone they know.  May the Spirit of God be with us all everywhere.  Let us walk right in to the face of trouble and be moved to act.

Red Beans Stop

We were away this weekend--I at a Lutheran Confessions Class with Deidra and lots of other Lutherans willing to give up a Saturday to hear a long lecture about the Book of Concord from Dr. Root--Keith and Ella went to have fun with Ma, Ah-Pa and their dog Maggie.  They got to eat oysters for breakfast--Keith's dad does them just right--with crackers and cornmeal and I missed it.  I also just like his mom and dad--they are very down to earth.

Keith told me that on Friday night when they were on their way up to his childhood home, Ella realized the stoplight colors.  So she says from the back seat "Red beans stop.  Green beans go" and Keith reassured her that yes, that is so.  So the whole rest of the way there, every stoplight they encountered the same phrases again: Red beans stop, green means go.

Last night as we went to the Youth Symphony of which our friend Anna is a member...we heard it the whole way.  I think I was more amazed that Ella of the great musical integrity there--somehow I expected them to be a little off...but was happily surprised that I liked most of the music--from the Star Wars to the Tchaikovski.  I'm fascinated to try and pick out the sounds of individual instruments and we had a seat in the front so we heard every note.  Really loved the tuba parts, but I can see why the strings are so important.  Lots of versatility.  Now I wish I'd sat further to the back so I could have seen each instrument better.

Lutheran Confessions Class

This Saturday was the second of two plenary sessions by Dr. Root of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary.  Rather than bore those of you who might read and are not theological students, I'll just hit the highlights of this second session.  I'm sure each person there had a different idea about what the highlights were, that's just how the Spirit works through the Word--it is different for each of us.

First, my cohort in listening to the theology behind the reformation, Deidra, was absent...in the hotel room of all places, with a migraine.  So I let her sleep it off while I took 18 pages of notes while knitting a sweater for Ella.  The thing about older students is that we become overachievers in class, even a class without a grade--and if I had not had the sweater, I might have taken 36 pages I suppose.

One of the things that surprised me was that Luther was very disappointed in the Reformation as a whole--he was one who believed in working for change inside the system in place.  It took him quite a while after he started the movement before he decided the Pope was indeed an antiChrist--a papal bull that excommunicated him might have moved him in that direction of course.  He often spoke and wrote too fast to think through all of his theology.  In short, he tended to be what we might nicely refer to as brash...or not so nicely, a jerk.  When there was a Saxon visitation in 1527 he was deeply disappointed that the original reasons for the reformation were forgotten and the peasants were simply revolting.  He found the ministers revolting too--generally b/c if they came over from the Catholic side, they were still not teaching the very foundations of Christian belief.

He felt called to improve on what "Christian Life" means and so wrote his Small Catechism for families and the Large Catechism for pastors.  Just in case you are now asking the question, the Small Catechism has the Ten Commandments and Luther's explanation for each, the Apostle's Creed explained in three articles, and the Lord's Prayer, explained in 7 petitions.  Of course the Sacraments of Baptism and Communion are also explained.  He includes morning, evening and noontime prayers also, but these just a guide as to what you might pray.  All of these are the basics of Christian Life, and Luther felt like the average person should know them and reflect on them as life-long learning.  He said that even after being a studied professor, he still had to go back to the basic works and reflect and he still came up wanting.  In many places these are still studied and memorized by students who are up for Confirmation in the Lutheran tradition.

In the Large Catechism, which I think should be read by all laity now that people are so literate, I couldn't get past the first commandment explanation without feeling convicted.  Deidra said the one that she thought was most convicting was the explanation for "Thou Shalt Not Kill" because of the many ways we do kill others each day (which might indeed lead to killing physically)--but gossip and demeaning our neighbors are ways to kill others as much as we might brutalize another.

A note to say that if you got the Small Catechism out and looked at it, the Ten Commandments might not be listed as they are in your Bible.  Then you have to know this other little piece of history and that is that Luther translated the Latin Vulgate Bible into German because that was what was available to him, there being no other translations available at the time.  Now scholars translate directly from the Greek and Hebrew and still there are many points at which it is left to interpretation from syllabic languages what a word "truly" means.  This is just my two cents, the professor did not say this.  But I understand the context in which these works were translated and thought if you didn't know, you might want to also.

Of course we were given some terms that we had no knowledge of before now (and definitely not me as I'm not a Latin scholar:  Simul Justus et Peccator--at the same time justice and sinner.  I stop here to say I'm only on page 6 of my notes and know that I can't possibly encompass a whole day's worth in a few paragraphs here.  It does help me to process what I learned, but I'm not sure I've enlightened anyone else.

I was fascinated to learn that until later, during Calvin's Geneva speech making, there was no numbering of verses in the Bible.  So citations from the Lutherans writing the Book of Concord (mainly Luther and Melancthon) were done by chapter and not verse until recently.  One of the things that we learn about is that Luther did believe that reading the Bible was the way to improve Christian life, not a way to make us fight each other.  He was not one who backed down from an intellectual fight though.  He knew that when he decided not to recant the words in his books that he would be executed.  Remarkably, he was not.

The Gingerbread Boy

Ella has been loving Jan Brett's The Gingerbread Baby--where little Mattie peaks in b/c his gingerbread baby smells so good and the little thing takes off into the village saying "catch me if you can" and he finally is able to catch the baby himself.  I know, it's early for Christmas stuff but there's enough of it out right now that Ella is really looking forward to winter and snow this year.  We've sung the Frosty the Snowman book and Iza Trapani's version of Jingle Bells which includes some extra verses and a trip around the world to other kids' celebrations.

So Keith surprised us with a mold for the Gingerbread Boy--and then made the cookie dough to fill it when he was off.  So, we finally decorated it.  And ate the little boy.

A Text About Lil One

I was at class late one evening last week and on my cell phone I received this message:

Bfore she'd let me leave the bedroom, e wanted to share the 'peace' with me and all the stuffd friends.  She's ur little girl through and through.  Good hart & happy.

The part of church that I am least comfortable about--and I've gotten a lot better, especially if a few people hug me and I feel more like family---but especially because Ella loves saying "Peace (of God) be with you."

Ella absolutely loves the people we've let into our lives because we belong to a church close to us.  We go on Wednesdays where I used to help make quilts for the community (and sometimes for LWR) and just eat lunch "with the ladies" Ella says.  She asks to go to church when we leave the driveway and lists the names of people we know :  See annamarkbethcatherinesaradan pstrcandy.  It all comes out in one big slur of words like that.  She is the only child her age who regularly attends right now and though we've considered changing just so that she would get time with others her age, she is sometimes even a participant in the services.  Sometimes she lightens the whole place up:  "water mommy" she says during the sermon.  Or last Sunday I got her to say "Lord, hear our prayer."  Just like I did when I was little, I think she understands way more than kids do when they get older and are confused, or maybe I should say confounded by the mysteries.