Whatever Happened to the Sabbath?

My church (which is on Facebook, and Twitter) is doing a number of small group studies for Lent.  Every group covers the same topic each week, and that topic is related to Sunday’s service as well.  Pretty neat.  One of the groups is structured around writing.  It’s being led by our Pastoral Intern and she’s posted some of her writing for the group on her blog. 

It’s pretty neat and though I’m not as brave as her to share so much, I thought I’d give it a try and share my writing for this week on the topic of Sabbath.  (Last week was on prayer; we wrote psalms.)

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Sabbath.  I can’t hear or see the word without thinking “nsabata,” the Tonga word for “Saturday.”  Having the word built into the week like that was a constant reminder.  “What is today?”  “Sabbath.”  “Rest.”

As Easter draws near, I long for Sabbath.  I miss it fiercely.  That week I used to find some way to set aside.  “What denomination does that?”  Because it’s not a valid religious practice unless sanctioned by some denomination.  Yet, I made it happen.  Me and God, me and a dorm room, a hut, an apartment.  Me and myself and fear, of the dark, of boredom, of being alone.  Me and God and calmness and peace.  It seems impossible now.  The world calls.  How can one disappear for a whole week?  But the world called then, too.  And yet, I found Sabbath.

Now, my Sabbath comes in smaller doses.  An evening knitting.  A BART ride with closed eyes and a prayerful heart.  A deep breath.  A hug.  A connection to God and God’s world that may not last for days or hours, but long enough to listen, long enough to stop, long enough to be.

I still miss that week.

My Christmas Suit

And for those few of you who might be thinking it, no, a Christmas Suit is nothing like a Birthday Suit.

Made entirely from scraps and left-over fabric, this suit took me several years to make. It was put aside often for many, many other projects.  I started it on the antique treadle machine I bought when Mr. Trizzle was around. He hated the noise my electric machine makes so I bought the only super-quiet kind of machine I know, leg-powered.  The jacket was made pretty much entirely on the treadle, but by the time I got to the skirt, I was back to the electric.

By October, I realized the suit was almost finished and decided, by-golly, this would be my Christmas Eve outfit this year.  And it was.

It’s a Butterick Retro Pattern from 1936.  The skirt sits at the waist and is mid-shin length. It’s fitted, but not super-fitted, so there’s room to move in it and it doesn’t pull at the hips.  The jacket is tailored at the waist and hits just above the hips on me.  It has a large collar and rather high neckline.  And the whole suit has lots of hand-stitching detail.

I used grey wool left from Mr. Trizzle’s Barristers Ball suit (I had bought a lot of extra in case I messed it up really bad) for the outside of the suit.  This fabric frays a lot so I went through a bottle plus of fray-check and reinforced every seam with stitch-on black seam binding.  The lining of the skirt is tan silk left from a pair of under-trousers I made for Mr. Trizzle.  It’s trimmed with hand-stitched rows in a nice, light grey button-hole twist thread.

But the really fun part is the jacket lining.  One lower sleeve is part of an old skirt that Mommy got rid of after it got to stretched out.  The other lower sleeve was a very badly done skirt I made many years ago for Munchkinhead out of scraps from a dress Mommy made for Alfred.  The upper sleeves are black suit lining from a zoot suit I started for my college boyfriend and never finished.  The center back is part of an old worn and torn vest Mommy made as part of a three-piece suit for Daddy.  The side-fronts are suede cloth left from the gloves I made for my Jessica Rabbit costume.  And the side-backs are pieces from an old pair of Mr. Trizzle’s boxers that no longer fit.

Inside-out jacket, front.

Inside-out jacket, back.

After finally finishing the suit, I figured I’d wear it for Christmas and it’d wind up sitting in the closet with my other homemade suits.  But, it turns out it’s one of my favorite suits.  It fits well; I love the style; and it works great for leaving my trench coat at home.  I often treat the suit jacket as an outer jacket and look nice and professional in the skirt and a pretty blouse.

Shalom to you my friends

Round and round we went, feet crossing this way and that, circle within circle within circle of people, all dancing, all going round and round, breaking to swing a partner, like a giant chicken dance without the flapping.   In the center of our concentric rings, my friend was teetering high on a chair hoisted above the crowds.  We were celebrating her, her Bat Mitzvah and the B’Nei Mitzvah (plural) of seven other adults who hadn’t had the opportunity for a Bat or Bar Mitzvah when they were 13.

I was having so much fun dancing and learning to do the Horah, it was hard to believe that a few hours earlier I’d been standing in the foyer of the synagogue feeling awkward and worrying.  Would it matter that I was German, even though my family left Germany before World War II, the way it matters that I’m white when I’m in a room full of black people even though my family came to the US long after slavery ended?

Deciding not to think about it, I followed others from my friend’s group into the large worship room and tried my best to do what they did.  Not only was it B’Nei Mitzvah, it was also the synagogue’s young adult Shabbat Service and the seventh day of Hanukkah.  There was so much going on.  I opened the worship book and was a bit surprised to find the page numbers going in descending order.  Everything in the book was written in Hebrew, transliterated Hebrew in English letters and English.

The readings, the recitations between the Rabbi and the congregation, all these were in Hebrew.  When the Rabbi spoke to the congregation, that was in English.  She explained the day’s Torah reading, the story of Joseph from Exodus.  She gave the Cliff Notes version of the entire story up to the point of the day’s reading, everything about Joseph being thrown in a pit by his brothers, rescued and then sold into slavery and how his ability to interpret dreams had saved him.  She even mentioned his technicolor dream coat and ended with a soap-opera style “last time on..” and a good “dun-dun-dun.”

The day’s reading was printed in English in the bulletin, but the actual Torah reading was done in Hebrew by the B’Nei Mitzvah.  And they weren’t reading a transliterated version; they were reading real Hebrew.  They took  turns, each chanting a few sentences of the passage, their voices rising and falling in a beautiful rhythm.

Although the chanting was in Hebrew, it felt very familiar and reminded me of Catholic mass. Many things in the service reminded me of Catholic mass.   The way the Torah scrolls were treated, from the time they were removed from the Ark behind the Rabbi until they were returned to that place, reminded me very much of the treatment of the host; the standing, the bowing and kissing of thumbs, the reverence.  I don’t know if that’s evidence of the connection between Judaism and Christianity or if these were only things that are similar across many religions.

The service was full of music.  I didn’t dare try to pronounce the Hebrew words of the songs, yet certain familiar words caught my ear as everyone around me sang.  “Amen.” “Adonai.” Words I knew from my own church services.  As I listened, I looked around the room, watching.  The joy illuminating people’s faces as they joined in lively songs of praise, the tears moistening the corners of their eyes as they sang the somber Kaddish to remember the dead; whether happy or sad, it was all prayerful.

And then, voices began to sing in English.  Not just a song in English, a song I knew.  “Lord prepare me, to be a sanctuary; Pure and holy, tried and true.  With Thanksgiving, I’ll be a living, sanctuary for you.”  Standing there together, our voices lifted in praise all with the same prayer,  it was illuminatingly clear, We truly are all God’s children.

Christmas Dresses

It’s almost Christmas and I’m soon headed back to the land of milk and cheese to celebrate with my wonderful family. In the spirit of Christmas and family and all that fabulous stuff, I wanted to share one of my favorite holiday traditions: new Christmas dresses.

New Christmas dresses are extra special.  Not only are the new and for Christmas Eve at Grandmas, they’re made with tender loving care.  Every year growing up, Mommy would take us to the fabric store a month or so before Christmas to pick out our patterns and fabrics.  Christmas always had the fanciest fabrics of the year, velvets and satins and rich colors. 

We’d sit at the pattern table pouring through books, me driving Mommy nuts with “could you change this to this and remove this and add this?”  And Alfred driving us all nuts complaining she didn’t like the color of the dress in the book.  (For those who don’t sew, you can make the dress whatever color you want.) 

After we finally picked our patterns, including Mommy picking out her own, we’d head into the fabric section to continue driving Mommy crazy by either picking out the most expensive or most difficult to sew fabrics, slippery fabrics that would slide off the machine, patterned fabrics that would need to be lined up and crazy fabrics that were not suited to the pattern we’d just picked out.  Mommy would talk us into something more reasonable or somehow make the fabric work.
My sisters and me in our slippery fabrics. (and the only time you’ll see Alfred in better shoes than me.)

Sometimes, Alfred and Munchkinhead and I would all match.  Sometimes, Mommy would match, too.  One year, Mommy made Munchkinhead and Alfred’s Barbies Christmas dresses to match their own.  I was Mommy’s Barbie because we had matching dresses, too.

And there was that year I wanted my dress to be just like one of my Holiday Barbies’.  Poor Mommy; that must have been an extra headache.  That particular Holiday Barbie wore a long, poofy, green velvet frock with detailed beading all up the bodice and sparkles from the hem up.  Mommy did a pretty good job coming up with something close.

Barbie is the one on the left.

The dresses didn’t always turn out perfect - there was that one year she put my skirt on Alfred’s bodice and vice versa.  Alfred had a very beautiful flowy gown, and I had a mini-dress. And my size in high school and college fluctuated so much dresses often barely fit by Christmas – but we always loved our Christmas dresses.

Now that I’m too big to live at home, I make my own Christmas dresses.  It doesn’t always go well and they’re never as pretty as Mommy’s, but it’s still fun.

Incidentally, that dress was from last Christmas and it no longer fits, but the dress Mommy made me in 1998 still does.

Packer Socks

They were supposed to be Alfred’s birthday present, but with a supply delay and my own busy schedule, they turned into Alfred’s one-month-after-birthday present.

I’d been wanting to make some cable-knit socks, and when I saw that green and gold Team Spirit yarn, I just knew I had to make something for Alfred.  I poured through pattern book after pattern book at knitting group.  I scoured the internet.  But I just couldn’t find a cable-knit sock pattern I liked.

Then I found this leg warmer pattern.  So I started knitting it, but Alfred’s not a leg warmer person.  I decided I’d try turning the leg warmer pattern into socks by referring to the pattern for my lace stockings.  It sort of worked, but the upper part was still very legwarmer-y and was far too large to be part of a sock.  So I started over.

I looked at the leg warmer pattern, and the stocking pattern, and the footed legwarmer I’d just made. I grabbed a pencil and some paper and started writing.  Two months later, Alfred had her new socks.

They aren’t perfect.  Alfred mentioned them to me on the phone one day, “one looks like it was made for Daddy and the other looks like it was made for Munchkinhead.”  (except she calls Munchkinhead by her real name.)  That’s my Alfred, never one to beat around the bush and always one too look a geschenkten gaul in the mouth.  “Hush, wash them and wear them and they’ll wind up the same size eventually.”

She confirmed that once she put them on, they both fit.

 

yarn: Red Heart Team Spirit in green/gold