[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

New Year's Eve

I am sitting in my big oak chair with Maggie-cat on my lap, turning the 
heel of a sock. I have a mug of raspberry herb tea. The only exciting thing 
that's going on is some rather good jazz on the CBC, unless you consider 
(as I do) that a sock heel-turn is pure magic.  It couldn't be more 
placidly domestic. And this is just fine by me.

There are too many new years: the new school year, the new tax year, the 
new fiscal year, the first Sunday in Advent, the first real snow of the 
season, the first day of school summer holidays, each and every 
birthday.... I don't know why we fuss so about January 1st, much less give 
ourselves permission to get hogtied the night before. It got a little 
exciting around Jan. 1, 2000, because of all the worries about Y2K, which 
proved to be irrelevant. But the fact is that 12:00AM on January 1st is the 
division between 2006 and 2007 is, in fact, an artificial arrangement, like 
the border between Canada and the United States. It's not really real. It's 
something we've invented.

We've invented it because strict chronological measurement was tremendously 
useful; it let you (for example) determine a ship's longitudinal position 
back before radio. It's crucial in scientific experimentation. Whether it's 
still so important in much of real life, I'm less sure; it matters for 
reproducible results, but we have other ways of determining longitude. As 
we've gotten more and more precise about time, timepieces have become less 
and less valuable. I can buy a quartz watch for under $10, which measures 
time with an exactitude that a great 18th-century horologer could only 
approximate.

But Magnificat cares nothing for time or its measurement, only for the 
warmth of a lap and the occasional ear-scritch. And if I cared for time the 
way I'm supposed to, I'd buy socks instead of knitting them.  True, they 
wouldn't be engagingly self-striped, but they also wouldn't take hours of 
my time.

For us, the new year -- the new age -- is already long arrived; we 
celebrated its arrival a week ago. True, it doesn't seem to be on our 
schedule or to behave the way we want it to, but God's not using our 
calendar but God's own. Our time marches along like legionaries on a Roman 
road, one-two-one-two, but God's time, _kairos_, stretches and bends, folds 
back upon itself, skitters backward, tumbles forward. God dances in and 
with _kairos_; Einstein overheard faint fragments of the tune, just enough 
to tease. 'Sokay; we believe that in God's _kairos_, we too will be 
time-dancing with God in all eternity.

And we'll be wearing hand-knit socks if I have anything to say about it, 
because a hand-knit sock wraps a foot with a statement of love (thank you, 
Georgiana!). As for time, the next yarn to sit on my needles is going to be 
hand-spun and hand-dyed, too; the lamb's wool waits on its bobbins to be 
plyed and the newly dyed silk is drying. I'll start spinning it tomorrow. 
Talk about a waste of time. Talk about an act of love.