It's been quiet for the past couple months here at the Perverse Lutheran. There have been so many words out there that I've felt it's gratuitous to add any more. I've begun one or two posts that have been left behind as three-paragraph drafts. More often, thoughts or images have crossed my mind, literally, from right to left and then floated away.
So here we are, well into November, a month that usually holds plenty of fuel for Perverse Lutheran blogging. All Saints Day, Election Day, Veterans' Day, then on to Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the First Sunday in Advent. Past, present and future -- they're all here in November.
The saints remembered in worship at my church on the first Sunday of the November 2024 included my 92-year-old mother, Marilyn Gotsch, who died on September 23. This past week I've been part of the so-called Democratic "elite" depressed and bewildered by the outcome of the election. Outside, the weather become autumn's crisp and cold, but inside, we're back on Central Standard Time. It's 4:45-ish as I write this and it's quite dark. Saturday's trip to big box stores for pots and potting soil confirmed showed shelves filling up with Christmas merchandise; the advancing army of velvety Santas that confronted me yesterday as I walked in the door at Home Goods (a "home decor" store) was enough to set off a panic attack.
Better to be quiet and stay home. I've counteracted anxiety by weaving at my loom. I'm still a relative beginner, executing a treadling sequence 30 picks long takes concentration. If I mess up, I have to be very deliberate about finding and correcting the mistake; I am not wired for this. I've had to fuss over this project. I discovered crossed threads and threading mishaps only after weaving six inches of fabric. I cut it off, re-tied, and began again. Today, as I sat down to weave my way to the end of the warp, I noticed what I thought was a major mistake four inches back. So I backtracked.
Un-weaving unfortunately reminds me of a poem from when I first learned to read called "Eletelephony." I was today years old when I learned that it was written by Laura Elizabeth Richards, the daughter of Julia Ward Howe who wrote words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant—
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone—
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I’ve got it right.)
Howe’er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee—
(I fear I’d better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong!)
When I unweave, the more I try to set the threads free, the more the weft and warp get wound around each other in ever more elaborate ways. The shuttle catches on threads that are up when they should be down, and the more I manipulate the threads, the more unruly they become.
And isn't that a lot like life?
Craft as metaphor for the trials and triumphs of life. It's a cliche, but maybe it's also what powers projects on to completion, and sometimes even perfection.
Today's hour of unweaving ended in a Sisyphean discovery. When I finally got back to the place where I thought I'd made an error, a closer look showed that I had not made a mistake after all. All the backpedaling was unnecessary. But it was time to step away from the loom.
This past week has become a time to be quiet. There will be time soon to stir things up, to protest, to untangle and fix and change. In the past weeks, I've sometimes paused for a moment and thought, my mother died. That happened. Wow.
The choir anthem yesterday morning had a rhyming text based on Psalm 139 in a setting by Alice B. Parker.
Lord, thou hast searched me, and dost know
where'er I rest, where'er I go;
Thou knowest all that I have planned,
and all my ways are in thy hands.
The last stanza is more hidden and more vivid:
If deepest darkness cover me,
the darkness hideth not from thee;
to thee both night and day are bright,
the darkness shineth as the light.
It will be Advent soon. I'll have finished the project on my loom -- placemats for Christmas. I'll be rested and ready to stand up as a real, created and creating person among all the commercial Santas.
