Many years ago I found myself at a pottery retreat in Cork. We spent the days sitting in the pottery shed working instinctively with clay or relaxing in the garden being still, while enjoying the sun and the butterflies and the flowers. The word of the psalm “Be still and know that I am God” was an apt description of the six days we spent sitting and knowing. And on the 7th day we biblically bounded forth to take our rest, downed our artistic and spiritual tools, so to speak. And as we walked down the hill and talked, what should catch my eye but a big factory sign: KNIT AND SEW.

This surely was the other side, the necessary complement to our week’s retreat work. There we had been SITTING AND KNOWING and here we were now and the clear message was: KNITTING AND SEWING. Back to porridge, if you like to mix your metaphors. I reflected on this word play, this turning of sounds inside out and thought isn’t life a very personal and complexly patterned sequence of moments made up of knitting and sewing and sitting and knowing?

Mind you it’s more tempting to spend the greater amount of time on the knitting and sewing bit, the making of new things, new plans, the patching up, picking up lost stitches, pulling the slipped one over the knit one. I’m more into the “sitting and knowing” phase of life. Mind you there has to be a balance. All prayer and no work would make Kitty an even duller contributor to a blog.

by Kitty Fitzsimons SSL