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Threads Throughout the United Kingdom

2013-06-12 10.10.12
What fun I had finding yarn in the United Kingdom.

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I found most of it on my time on the Island of Iona. Two of the skeins I found in a little shop down in the village, one from England and one from Wales.  

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The third yarn I got was raised right there on Iona. I even got to meet the sheep and the woman who raises the sheep and sells the yarn. It was spun at a manufacture across the isle, but besides that short trip, born, harvested and sold on the island of Iona.

2013-06-12 09.46.28My final UK yarn came to me on our very last evening in the country.  We were in Sheffield England with a group of incredibly kind and hospitable church groups.  One of the women saw me working on the project during our workshop with John Bell and asked me about it afterwards. I told her about how I was gathering yarn along my way. Later that evening she came back with some red and blue yarn from a project she’d been working on.

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Red and blue for the UK colors of course.  I was touched and wove it right in.

2013-06-12 09.46.06Thanks to the people and sheep of the United Kingdom for adding their threads to my journey.

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Baptism: A Poem

Part of the Pilgrimage Summer 2013 Series
Written during my time on Iona

2013-06-10 10.24.44Baptism: A Poem

I met the shore,
greeting the sea I’ve
seen now from multiple angles,
but had yet to touch.

It seemed right that
this was the moment,
in this cove where
legend,
myth,
and flesh
linger.

This place where pair
after pair
of feet have trod.

To wonder and
pay homage,
to the Saint,
but more,
to the thin space
curled within
this cove.

I stoop.

People fill the rocks,
each of us in our own moment.
Mine with this rock curled in my hand,
and the water.

I took off my glove,
and dipped the tips
of two fingers into the salt bay.

To my forehead,
and my breast,
the cross etched when I was a wee one,
just four weeks old.

The crosses I’ve traced so many times
when I greet the ocean,
the Divine Movement
throughout my life.

In the name of the Creator,
Redeemer and Sustainer.
I commit again,
To a life of service,
to my God
and fellow humans.

The wave comes and covers my boot.

I rise and step back,
hesitant to leave this moment
of ritual.

Refocused on my life
in the world.

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Hopping Across the Pond

2013-06-06 00.14.04Part of the Pilgrimage Summer 2013 Series

This evening I’ll be getting on a plane with classmates from seminary, and a wonderful professor, and heading to the UK for our Cross-Cultural Course. 

We will be exploring Celtic Christianity, worship, music, community living, and inner-city ministry. Starting at Iona Abbey and then moving our way south to spend time with a few other communities and finish off with a workshop with John Bell.

I’m going off grid for the trip and am looking forward to leaning into the rhythms of nature and the community around me, without the distractions that are usually so easily at my fingertips.  I am taking my camera, sketchbook and journal, and I look forward to sharing yarns and yarns with you when I return at the end of June.