So Great a Cloud

Wordsworth may have wandered lonely as a cloud, but elsewhere it would seem that the metaphorical clouds have been gathering and it never rains but pours. I take that as justification to indulge in just a bit more Jeremiah Wright stuff. There's a silver lining (actually more than one), of course.

Here's the silver lining: In honor of National Crochet Month, I pulled out an old crochet UFO from the great cloud buzzing around Area 151, looked at it, and put it away again because it proves I sometimes dabble in the dark arts, er, because I couldn't find the chart. It was meant to be a bag.



Here's the Wright stuff: Jeremiah Wright has had to cancel long-standing preaching engagements due to security concerns for himself, his family, and his hosts. However, he is not without a great cloud of witnesses [tosouton nephos marturōn, τοσοῦτον νέφος μαρτύρων], a churchy way of saying he has defenders.

Dean Snyder, Senior Minister of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, has made a statement in support of Jeremiah Wright. The Clintons attend Foundry UMC. I suppose you could say Hillary's pastor is standing up for Barack's pastor. Ed: The Clintons used to attend Foundry UMC during WJC's presidency, when Philip Wogaman was the pastor. Snyder is Wogaman's successor; it is not clear if Senator Clinton has maintained or severed her ties to the church.

Jane Fisler-Hoffman, a member of Trinity United Church of Christ, talks about TUCC, the United Church of Christ, and smear email messages. When the video was made Jane was serving as Conference Minister of the Illinois Conference, a position of great responsibility (in some church denominations, her title would be bishop).


Or watch here
I happen to know Jane – she's an excellent church executive. She's temporarily serving in Southern California-Nevada Conference, but still loves her church.

Right-leaning PreachingToday.com discovered to their surprise that they had published Wright's sermon, "The Audacity to Hope," back in 1990 (see the biblical text, 1 Samuel 1:1-18 and the referenced George Frederic Watts painting, Hope). It's largely about women.

Here's more silver lining: Or, "And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils." Don't you love how that scans?



The daffodils are here – this is a dancing topiary bear... er, topiary dancing bear... er, whatever. Topiary frequently makes me shudder, but this one rocks.

I just signed up for the easiest, quickest, most charming sock swap ever, the Wee Tiny Sock Swap 2008 hosted by Emily. It'll take about a week from start to finish. The swap has a Flickr pool and a Ravelry group. I heart mini-knitting, especially (to paraphrase Neruda) when it's a matter of wee tiny socks in spring.

Vigilant

Today is what some call the Great Vigil. In keeping with that tradition, it's a good day for another rant about politics and religion, again wrapped in yarn and flowers to sweeten ill humor. In the interest of full disclosure, the yarn is a wip, but that could be misread as advocacy for violence and there's been quite enough misunderstanding already.

Here's the yarn, in the process of becoming Annetrelac Socks by Sandy Beadle with a 64-st cuff, instead of 72 sts. Knitting backwards for the entrelac always makes me crazy, but I'm loving how the yarn is pooling. It's my March Sockdown! sock.



Here's the rant: By now just about everyone with access to U.S. news media knows that Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, has preached fiery sermons that sometimes include strong language – there's video to prove it. But what is less known is the brief excerpts shown incessantly by some media outlets actually were selectively redacted in ways that distort them beyond necessary summary into willful misrepresentation.

For example, in Dr. Wright's first sermon after September 11, his words, "America's chickens are coming home to roost," are a quotation of a quotation. The originator of the phrase was Malcolm X, but the speaker who used the words and who is cited in the sermon was Edward Peck, a former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Deputy Director of President Reagan's Terrorism Task Force. See for yourself – Trinity Church has posted a longer excerpt of the sermon on YouTube. Ed: Audio of the entire sermon of September 16, 2001 is available here (scroll down). It's about 36 minutes long and is very worth hearing in its entirety.


Or view here.
For those unfamiliar with Christianity, the sermon has as its text Psalm 137. The psalm's opening lament is well-known, but (as the preacher notes) its cry for wholesale payback gets less attention. Remarkably, Dr. Wright is preaching against the popular demand and the biblical license for total war. Some may find his explicit call for self-examination and implicit call for a measured response counter-cultural, radical, or offensive, but this sermon is hardly the hate-filled raving of a lunatic black racist. I think it's fair to wonder why some have characterized it and him as such.

Trinity Church is in the process of posting more excerpts of Dr. Wright's sermons. They're worth a look. I may not always agree with the content of Dr. Wright's jeremiads and my pastors may use a less loud preaching style, but the church denomination we share has a long history of freedom of the pulpit and freedom of conscience. This does not mean ignoring or wishing away what seems difficult or different in others, but rather serious, respectful engagement with one another and deep commitment to the theological principle of unity in diversity. Thus endeth today's rant.

Here's the flowers: cherry blossoms from Branch Brook Park.



I'm dreaming of the Cherry Blossom Festival next month.

A Red Sweater Day

Although I'm late to the party, it must be noted that yesterday was Sweater Day! Children's educator Mr. Rogers would have turned 80 yesterday and since his signature garment was a sweater (most were handknit by his mom), yesterday was a day to wear a favorite sweater in his honor. Today isn't so bad either. While some would insist only a red cabled zip front will do, Mr. Rogers was an infinitely accepting person who wore many styles and colors of sweaters over the years, well worthy of honors. So here's my favorite old sweater, the whimsical VK cat sweater:



Much as I love it, perhaps it's not quite suitable for Good Friday services. Ah well, at least no one could possibly dislike these cheery embellished mittens from my Mitten Swap pal, Deb. Deb is not only my upstream pal, she's also the swap organizer and won the Bobby for Funniest Ravatar (as knitiot on Ravelry)!



Thank you, Deb, I love my new mittens and all the other loot (Fiddlehead Mittens pattern, Frog Tree Alpaca yarn, artisinal chocolates (!), project bag, beach reading, notepad and magnet, and little sheepy friend, plus a sheep drinking glass not pictured because of flare). The fit and colors are perfect!



Yesterday was also Maundy Thursday, Purim (a sometimes boisterous holiday), and the spring equinox – clearly, a red-letter day. It was too windy to balance an egg on its point outdoors, perhaps because of all the hot air directed at various members of my church denomination, which has made for an interesting Holy Week. So instead of an amusing egg photo, here's a brief 2008 Presidential Candidates Implicit Association Test, which I hope gentle readers will find both illuminating and entertaining.

The Palms

Here's a bit of green as a nod to yesterday's festivities, although I'm mostly thinking about Sunday's Palm Sunday service at Church of the Improv, which included Arvo Pärt's beautiful Berlin Mass for choir and string orchestra. It's wonderful beyond words to hear sacred music written by a living composer. The staging – with violins (playing ethereal harmonics) placed to the left of the chancel, violas, 'cellos, and basses to the right, and choir on the chancel steps – emphasized the conversation between voice and instruments in ways at once reminiscent of Ives' Unanswered Question and Renaissance chant. [Sigh] What a way to start Holy Week.

Put in knitting terms, the music was not unlike mittens of Malabrigo Worsted – soft, smooth, and flowing...



... simple, yet richly textured. It all makes sense – Pärt is a minimalist composer from Estonia, land of mittens.



These modified Chevalier Mittens by Tikru have jumped in the mail with a few other goodies and are on their way to my Mitten Swap downstream pal. I've heard from my upstream pal – my mittens are also in transit. By some synchronicity, a cold front has settled roundabout Exit 151, so this is a good time for mittens!



While I'm thinking about palms, I saw these oddities at the Flower Show. They have 3D bottlebrush fronds rather than the more usual flat pinnate or palmate fronds. Alas, they weren't labeled and none of the experts there could identify them (a few even claimed they "hadn't noticed" them). Perhaps they're a Roystonea sport? I wonder what they are called.

Ed: I heart the Internet. They're foxtail palms, Wodyetia bifurcata, an Australian species well known to Aborigines, but not to botany until 1983. Hardy and easy-care, they're increasingly popular in landscaping, particularly in Florida.

Constantly

Happy Pi Day! It's 3.14, a day to celebrate the never-varying relationship of the circumference of a circle to its radius. I've got the necessary for a knitterly observance: Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac and yarn, Yarn Place Graceful. I'm starting my first pi shawl!

EZ's simple design concept had always appealed to me, but the vast quantities of yarn required – as much as 3,400 yds or 3,100 m for some variations on the theme – and the concomitant investment of knitting time formed a high barrier. But then I told myself, Self, it's a shawl. Why obsess? I decided to wing it – when the ball o' yarn is finished, so is the shawl. Trala... la?



The first step was to weigh the ball o' yarn because [waves hands over math] when one-fourth of the yarn is knit, the shawl will be about one-half its finished diameter. Alas, the weigh-in revealed that the 100-g ball is 10% underweight. Plus the Yarn Place website indicates the yardage on the label is overstated by 40% due to a misprint. I'm guesstimating I have 1,600 yd (1,460 m), sufficient for a 50-inch (127-cm) shoulder shawl. Not quite what I was hoping, but fair enough.

Moving along, I finished the no-purl mini Monkeys. Alternating the MC with the CC at the ball of the foot initially was an expedient, but I like the way the solid contrast yarn makes the shyer colors in the variegated yarn pop. (Sorry about the still-blinding legs and allergy rash.)



There's a small ridge inside the sock where the colors are twisted together. It runs up the middle of the sole and doesn't bother me, although people with sensitive feet might want to place it elsewhere and people with very sensitive feet might not be able to tolerate it anywhere.

Overall, I'm very happy with my mini Monkeys, especially their mischievous stripes on the heel and gusset. They're just the thing to wear while cherry blossom viewing in Branch Brook Park...



... or while gawping at Heliconia at the Flower Show.



The similarity of colors and shapes wasn't intentional on my part, but perhaps it's yet more proof of that some plants engage in subliminal communication. Hm....