salt

“You are the salt of the earth.” Matthew 5:13

Making bread, and thinking about salt.

Bread is all about the yeast. The yeast makes the bread to rise. Warmth, in this recipe warmed milk, wakes the yeast so it can make the bread to rise. Sugar (or honey, or molasses, according to your preference and the recipe) gives the yeast something to eat, so it can make the bread to rise more quickly. Flour gives the yeast some structure, building materials if you will, to make the bread that rises.

Salt checks the action of the yeast; keeps it from rising too quickly.

I’ve been making breads lately that have not risen well, and have been dense and doughy in the center as a result. Too much salt? I wonder.

This dough, made from my recipe for egg bread, has milk, butter, sugar, yeast, eggs, and flour. It has no salt. Even the butter I used is unsalted.

This dough is about to climb out of the bowl, it has risen so much. Are you impressed? Are you thinking about the large quantities of bread I can make with this dough?

Don’t be fooled.

It cannot stand up to pressure, even a light touch.

Heavy pressure causes a complete collapse.

and we start the process over.

Dough risen without salt may look impressive at first, but it is full of air and holes and nothingness. It must be beaten down and let to rise again if it has any hope of becoming bread. A second, or even a third rising may give it an even enough texture, and enough internal structure, that it can be baked without collapsing in the heat of the oven, but the first quick rise is certainly not enough.

I’m also concerned about its taste. Bread should not taste salty, but a bit of salt brings out the natural flavor of the grain so that the bread tastes the way bread is supposed to taste. Without salt, the bread might taste flat. Bland. Lifeless.

What then does it mean to be the salt of the earth?

Updated: I made a second batch. Same recipe, same process; added one teaspoon of salt. One teaspoon of salt, in six cups of flour.

This time, the dough rose smoothly, evenly, without all the foamy airiness of the first batch. When I punched it down, there was resistance.

Even punched down, it still had substance.

and can you tell the difference in the finished bread?

The salt moderates the otherwise uncontrolled exuberance of the yeast. It steadies the growth. It allows for a fuller, steadier structure. Without it, the dough rises too high and too quickly, falls, and cannot sustain its own weight. Without it, too, the bread has little taste. With salt, the dough can reach its full height, and maintain it; with salt, the dough can resist pressure; with salt, the bread rises and expands without stretching apart and losing its shape. With salt, the bread tastes sweeter, even though the other ingredients haven’t changed.

What, then, does it mean to be the salt of the earth?

and the rich he has sent empty away

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden…
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.”

Have you ever felt too full? After Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps? Or a celebratory dinner out, with steak, potatoes, salad, drinks, dessert? Afterward, it’s uncomfortable…bloated, gorged, stretched too far; there may be satisfied moans, but also oaths to never eat again.

And yet, of course, I always eat again, and usually too soon. I’ve tried fasting, once or twice, in different ways, usually during Lent; I rarely felt that I was getting the point of it. Give up chocolate? I should do that anyway. Fast for entire meals? Why give up something good? I would read about fasting as spiritual discipline, and feel like I should connect with it somehow, but it never clicked.

Perhaps you know I knit. … A lot. Perhaps you can imagine I own a bit of yarn. I love my yarn stash; it is both deep and wide, and it has been well fed and tended. I can knit sweaters from my stash. …Several sweaters. I could knit lace shawls for every one of you who read this, from my stash. I could knit you all hats. …And possibly mittens.

Some of my stash is from local yarn shops, either near here or “souvenir yarn” from trips. Some is from fiber fests, Yarn Con, Stitches Midwest. Some was bought online. A bit is from swaps, gifts, trades with other knitters. All of it arrived surrounded in hope and potential, with me full of love and dreams for what it would become. Ahh, this will be a gift for a dear friend! for a family member! This skein will keep someone’s hands warm, this one will be draped softly around a neck, this one will combine with these others in glorious color as a hat. Or socks. Or slippers. A blanket. Another blanket. How much time do I think I have to knit, anyway?

In a good year, I might crank out two or three large lace pieces, a sweater or two, several socks, some mittens, three or four hats. I have started a blanket which lays dormant in a bin in the basement. An unfinished sweater keeps it company. And, to be honest, so does most of the yarn I’ve bought over the past three years. It turns out I can buy yarn much faster than I can knit it up.

The purpose of the stash is to feed my knitting…but somewhere along the line, the tables turned. I realized my knitting had come to serve to feed my stash. I would fall in love with a yarn (or two, or three), buy it in sheer joy, bring it home…and put it in a bin in the basement, with the rest of it all. Dimly, I was aware that every new skein I brought home only pushed the previous skeins deeper into the black hole of my stash. And still, the shops and websites and limited-only yarn sales called and beckoned and woke me and drew my gaze.

I’m not sure what the final trigger was, but I put myself on a yarn fast. It was hard at first; the websites still teased; the emails tempted. There’s scads of beautiful wool out there, folks; you have no idea. But with a bit of time, it was easier to look away, to click delete, to walk past. And when I stopped being distracted by the call of the new, I could slowly begin to remember and realize what I already have: an embarrassment of excellent yarn…and worthy activities besides knitting. The frantic cravings ease. Perspective returns, slowly.

Juan Huertas writes here http://spiritstirrer.org/2010/12/17/leading-into-the-unknown/ about fasting from numbers, and how it freed him from preoccupation with the count of attendance, offering, and other countable things about the worship services he leads, and allowed him to better see the people themselves. I begin to see how fasting is not about “giving up” a thing, or about whether that thing be “good” or “bad”. It is about getting the distracting things out of the way, so we can see the important things.

In our Advent Cantata this morning, we sang the words of the Magnificat. Suddenly, Mary’s joyful declaration that “the rich he has sent empty away” no longer seems punitive – could it be that this is the one thing the rich need most? A relief from being overstuffed – a rest from the preoccupation with more, with numbers, with how much and what next – a freedom from the bondage of wealth. A fast, which can, God willing, let us again see what God’s will really is.

Merciful, magnificent God, empty us. May Advent be for us a time of emptiness, of emptying, so that we may make space to be filled with your good things.

2 Cor 13:5

What are we willing to do? and what makes a thing worthy of our effort?

Yesterday. An undersized eleven-year-old boy tests for his black belt. My daughter attends the same martial arts school, and we’ve been friends with this boy’s families since babyhood, so we are honored to attend this two-hour ritual. Two other boys of the same rank also test for black belt, two current black belts test for a higher rank, and one of the instructors tests to re-certify; the skill level in the room is monstrous.

The test begins: basic skills. Simple kicks, simple blocks, the most rudimentary of techniques – but repeated, across the room, back, back again, until sweat appears on the brows and breathing is audible. Now more: combinations of techniques. Instructions given in Korean, rapidly, once. Across the room. Back. The sweat pours. They long for breath. Belts, once tied tight, loosen and drop to the floor with the repeated motions. The skills, crisp and clean at first, begin to be desperate swipes through the air. Muscles tremble; stances falter.

The instructor pauses only to correct them, but he knows they suck oxygen as he talks. More drills: get the footwork right. It changes between the first block and the following punch; don’t get lazy or your foundation will have no strength. The students respond, struggling to keep focus, to not let their burning, quaking muscles yield to the exhaustion, to show what they have learned and practiced.

These boys, these men, have devoted countless hundreds of hours in classes, practice, tournaments; preparation at home; anxiety about this test and the many others they have endured. They have paid thousands of dollars for years of training. They pay extra for the test itself.

They demonstrate escapes, forms, grappling, sparring. Defense against multiple attackers. The “Ring of Death,” a round-robin of rotating sparring partners. The sweat pours. One teenaged boy moans in pain when his sparring partner rolls on his fingers; testing pauses momentarily to assess injury, but he rejoins the group after a brief rest. Spots of blood begin to appear on uniforms: which one is bleeding? The same boy. Testing continues. The  oldest of the group, a man in his forties, shows his weariness; he can barely continue. The instructors push him: Keep your hands up! Get in there! Keep moving! Though he wants to drop, he fights it: gives it every effort he can, and more. He rallies, he moves, he keeps his hands up, he finds strength he thought was gone. He is one of the instructors for the rest. He does not shrink from the testing.

Verbal examination. They are tested on terminology, philosophy, history and origins of their art. Each student is required to know the rank number of each instructor. They are asked: Why do you want to be a black belt? What does it mean to you?

Why would a person endure this? Not just endure: why would they seek it? Pay for it? Show up again and again, despite the effort, despite risk of harm, despite the endless repetition of basic skills, despite the tedium of continual brand-new students, fresh-faced and inexperienced, needing to be taught the very simplest traditions: We stand like this. We tie the uniform this way. We say “Yes, Sir” and “No, Sir” to the instructors.

The black belts are tested on their ability to teach. “The first six moves of this form: teach it to the lower ranks.” Knowing your own skills is not enough: leadership, and passing on the knowledge, is essential.

At the end of testing, the new black belts are congratulated, welcomed. They are told firmly that how they conduct themselves, both at the school and out in the world, in uniform and in street clothes, reflects not only on themselves, but also on their school, their instructors, and their art. They are told that when they return to class, they will be starting new: with the same, the very same, basic techniques that they learned the first day they set foot in the school. They will learn it all again – but now they will learn it in a different way. More, much more, is expected of them.

The students are exhausted, ready to drop – they have given it every ounce of themselves – but they stand, firmly, proudly, ready.

Yesterday, black belt testing.

Today, I will go to church. There will be no test, no evaluation of my skills, basic or otherwise. No one will require me to struggle and push myself beyond my comfortable limits. Anytime I want to stop and rest, I can, with no penalty, although there won’t be much need for rest, as there won’t be much exertion required. I will not sweat, pant, tremble, bleed. I will not moan in pain. I will not be asked why I am there and what it means to me. While I may be invited to teach, the invitation is general, to everyone, and it is not required of me. I will not leave exhausted.

Why do I feel I am missing a greater path?

 

doin it wrong

Wait. You mean we’re supposed to be IN MINISTRY TO the world? Not just “living a good life” IN it?

Christ. Forty-two years; in the church every single week. You’d think I’d know this stuff.

the ups and downs of the hilly hundred

A few memories from riding the Hilly Hundred this weekend.

A thought on climbing the Three Sisters (beginning with Sister number one, the Twisted Sister):

I might walk this.

For the record, I didn’t. I didn’t walk any of it. I rode it all. Even Mt. Tabor.

On climbing the third Sister, the Sisty Ugler:

I might throw up.

Didn’t do that either. Thank goodness.

On flying down any of the great sweeping downhills through the woods:

If I spill now, I’m going straight to the ER a bloody mess.

Fortunately, this was yet another thing I didn’t do. My bike computer registered my maximum downhill speed at 35 mph, achieved on that amazing downhill right before Turkey Track Hill on the second day. One might think that speeds like this would yield a high average speed overall, but you have to balance them out with the 2mph uphills of Mt. Tabor and Water Tower Hill and the Sisters…and all the other named and unnamed hills of the two days.

A thought about thirty miles into Day One:

I might never be able to have sex again.

THAT particular thought led to this purchase at the end of the first day of riding, which singlehandedly allowed there to even BE a second day of riding:

Girlfriends, hear me now. If you ride a bike, go QUICKLY (I won’t say run, ’cause you might not be able to) to your nearest bike parts dealer and get yourself and your soft parts a seat WITH A HOLE IN IT. Preserve your marriage! Preserve your future childbearing potential! Preserve your God-given ability to pee!! Love yourself, love your partner, love your holey bike seat. Anatomically protective bike technology is your best friend on a long day’s ride.

‘Nuf said ’bout that.

I did also get myself both the souvenir Hilly Hundred 2008 T-shirt, and the souvenir socks. I think if one rides such a massive bragging rights ride as this, one is entitled to a certain amount of swag. I passed by the Pink Floyd bike jersey…reluctantly.

One of the entertaining aspects of the big organized rides like this, is the things you overhear as folks ride past you. I’ll share a few favorite quotes…

Me (to the two guys riding slightly behind me): HOLE.

Guy #1 (to his buddy): HOLE!

Guy #2: SH*T! (*bang*)

The singing peloton, climbing a fairly steep hill past me, to the tune of “I’m All Out of Love”: “I’m all out of gears/My cadence is TOO slow/My knees are now shot…”

And the woman who had just begun to believe she had crested the top of the climb, upon seeing that it turned a corner, increased significantly in incline, and was in fact the dreaded Cemetary Hill: “Oh Crap.”

And finally, a few words of advice for future Hilly riders.

Don’t miss breakfast. (Although you may have the luck of encountering coffee and doughnuts on the route.)

Get up with the stars and frost. (See: Don’t miss breakfast, above.) It helps to go to bed about 8:30 the night before. It was, in fact, surprisingly easy to go to bed at 8:30 after riding fifty miles of hills.

The shower trucks are, again surprisingly, nicer than the in-school showers and not to be scoffed at. Once again we experienced that pure joy which is a hot shower at the end of a long tiring day.

Wool (see? it’s a knitting post; I said “wool”) is a fabulous fabric for cycling. I had the fortune of picking up a long-sleeved wool bike jersey on clearance a couple of weeks ago, and it was perfect for the combination of sweaty climbing plus high-speed windy downhills. It breathes, it was never clammy or clingy, it wick’d and dried out quickly, and it was just the right layer for variable warmth. Plus, it let me give a heartfelt greeting to the sheep we passed…and it allowed me to still feel like a knitter even when I was so tired I could barely hold needles.

Which still holds today, in fact. I moaned and whimpered my way through yoga class, and then came home and crashed on the couch with my sleeping bag pulled over me. My knitting was by my side but I just couldn’t gather myself enough to pull it out. Maybe 8:30 isn’t too early for bed even tonight. My legs barely want to stand…but the hills are still swooping past me in my mind.

but will it preach?

Tomorrow, my pastor has asked me to bring my knitting to church. Now, usually, church is the one place I try really hard NOT to knit…I’ll knit just about anywhere else, but not in worship. Or during bible study. Waiting for the kids to get out of bell choir, though, is totally fair game and some of my best knitting time. Tomorrow, though, the sermon at the contemporary service is on something related to lifelong learning (I assume it will lead somewhere such as the lifelong process of learning to be Christian…could be wrong), so they have asked our music director/pianist extraordinairre to talk about learning to play the piano, and they’ve asked me to bring my knitting and talk about becoming a Master Knitter.

Here’s the questions Gail sent me to look over, and I’ll take advantage of having this space to start to sort through my possible responses.

Would you tell us what it means to be a Master Knitter?

It means I belong to the guild that developed the Master Knitter program, and that I have demonstrated my skills and understanding of knitting. There are three levels, each one more complex and demanding. They start with demonstrating competence in the basic skills of knitting, and move through increasingly difficult techniques, as well as research and written work to show my understanding of the history and traditions of knitting. I also was required to design and knit an original sweater and a hat, both using advanced techniques, and to write the patterns for these designs.

What was the first thing you ever knitted?

A square. I knit a lot of squares, actually. My first knitting teacher knew a bunch of things to make out of squares, so we could practice the basics and not have it be a big deal if we screwed up. One square turned into a very simple doll. One square turned into my needle book. Another one got sewn up and stuffed and turned into a toy rabbit. I knit a lot of squares.

Was there somebody who encouraged you in your early knitting learning?  Who, and what did they do?

I hung out with a bunch of other people who were also just learning to knit. We did have a teacher, but a lot of the encouragement we got was just from seeing each other try new things. When you get knitters together, there’s a whole lot of “wow, I want to do what you’re doing!” I still hang out with knitters a lot; it’s fun to see what everyone else is working on, and to get new ideas or help with a new technique. It’s fun to show off my own knitting, too.

Do you ever make a mistake in knitting?  What do you do then?

I make LOTS of mistakes. I make mistakes all the time. Less than I used to, I suppose…at least I usually don’t make mistakes with the basic stitches. Now I make really big, spectacular mistakes.

What do I do? I whimper. I complain to anyone around me who will put up with it. (This works best with other knitters.) A lot of times I can figure out what went wrong and fix it, by looking at my stitches really carefully, counting or checking the pattern or going back to the last place I knew it was right. Sometimes I can fix the problem by isolating just that one stitch or place where it’s wonky, dropping down to the bad spot, making it right, and chaining the stitch back up. Sometimes it’s too big for that and I have to rip out several rows to go back to the problem and start over from there. Knitters have words for that sort of thing: if you just have to go back a few stitches, it’s called tinking. If you have to take the needle out and rip it way back, that’s frogging. It happens to everybody.

Sometimes the problem is so big, or so frustrating, that the piece has to go into time out for a while until it can learn to behave. I have a sweater in time out right now (my Must Have Cardi, sadly enough) because one sleeve is bigger than the other. By a lot. I can’t stand to look at it so it’s in the basket until it is truly and deeply apologetic for what it has done.

What is your favorite thing that you have ever knitted?  Why?

This is a tough one. I have a lot of favorites. I love my lace silk Lily shawl because it is so beautiful it makes my heart stop, and because I knit it with a group of friends. I love the sweater I knit for Tom because it was so hard to do, and because he wears it. I love the vest I knit for Mook, because she wore it alot and took it home to Thailand with her and I know it makes her think of me. I love the brooklyntweed scarf I knit because it was so easy and the yarn is so wonderful to work with. I love the slippers and socks I’ve knit for my girls, because they call them Mamasocks and my work keeps their feet warm.

Did you make a conscious decision to be a master knitter or did it just happen along the way?

Are you kidding? That sort of thing doesn’t “just happen.” I decided. I paid a lot of money to it. I had to join a particular guild. I ordered materials and I had to follow some very precise instruction. I had to make a very deliberate decision, and then recommit to it over and over again. There were a million small steps along the way, and I had to choose to do each one of them. I had to really want it, because I could have knit a lot of other things instead with the time it took to do that program.

Do you ever get discouraged with the way a knitted piece is turning out? 

Oh yes. I cut a whole section out of my Fair Isle hat because it looked horrible, and it didn’t look good with the rest of the design. The hat had to go into time out for a while too before I could decide what to do with it.

What’s the best lesson you have learned while knitting (not about the actual knitting but more like patience, calm, sticking to a task)?

Everything anyone ever knit, is made from one stitch at a time. Every single thing…one stitch at a time. Even the biggest, most intricate sweater can be knit by just working one row, then another row, when you have a chance. You don’t have to have a huge chunk of hours to sit and make progress on something. You can knit something big just by carrying it around with you and working on it for five minutes while you’re waiting in the car, or ten minutes while dinner is cooking, or while you’re hanging out with friends, or watching TV in the evenings. You can do huge things with small bits of time, and it makes those small bits of time important because they’re part of making something happen.

Have you ever given something you’ve knitted as a gift?  How did that feel?

It feels great, especially if the person you’re giving it to really wears the thing. And especialy if they’re knitters. One time I gave a pair of mittens to a friend. It was a terribly difficult pattern, actually it had started out as a hat pattern and I used the design to make up a pair of mittens. I’d spent hours with graph paper and colored pencils working out the colors, and then many more hours actually knitting them. It was an advanced technique for me at the time and it was a huge stretch. When I gave them to my friend, she said, Oh, Thanks, and she put them with all her other mittens. Since then, she’s learned to knit herself, and she came back to me and said OH, WOW, THANKS for the mittens! So sometimes you have to let go of your desire to be thanked and appreciated, and just know that you did your best and you’ve given from your heart.

It’s a real work of love to knit something for someone. When I’m knitting something as a gift, I think about that person with every stitch and every row. It really is giving your heart, and then afterwards you know that your love and your hours and your work is walking around them keeping them warm. It’s very personal.

Do you think that you still have more to learn about knitting?  What would that be?

There’s always more to learn. That’s one of the great things about knitting…you never run out of new challenges, new techniques, something surprising. I have a long list of things I want to knit. There’s a new book on Estonian lace that’s coming out next month, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it because I know there will be a lot of things in there that I’ve never done before.

If you were to teach someone else to knit, what is the thing that you’d really want them to understand?

I do teach, and one of the things I really try to teach knitters is to understand what’s happening with their stitches. How do the stitches connect? Why does one technique give a different result than another?  Every stitch is connected with every other stitch. If you really look at your knitting closely, especially when you make a mistake and you have to undo it, you can get an understanding of how they connect, and then you can figure out how to fix things. Or how to make it do something different. You don’t have to be a slave to the pattern instructions…once you get some understanding of what’s happening, you can make your knitting do what YOU want it to. It’s not that difficult once you see the connections.

The other thing I would really say is, don’t get discouraged by the mistakes. You can’t NOT make mistakes…everyone does it. But if you let your early mistakes get to you, you’ll never learn to knit. You can read as many books as you want about knitting, you can collect patterns, you can stash yarn, you can draw up designs of what you want to knit, but if you don’t PUT STITCHES ON YOUR NEEDLES, you’ll never get anything knit. If you do put stitches on your needles, you’ll make mistakes…but look at what went wrong, see how it happened and what you might be able to do to fix it, and learn from it. Get help from a more experienced knitter, or just someone with fresh eyes. Most things can be fixed, and probably more easily than you fear. The only people I’ve known who “can’t” learn to knit, are the ones who expected to do it perfectly the first time, and then when they made a mistake like everyone else, got discouraged and gave up. The knitters who go ahead and knit, and make the mistakes and fix them…those are the ones who can go on to create something beautiful.