MY NEW PROJECT

With the box of Black Magic demolished, and very good they were too, I decided that today would be a good day to start again on my 5:2 WOL - “Way of Life” for the uninitiated - so when Mr. HCB suggested we go out shopping this morning, I quickly decided that to go shopping whilst fasting was not a good idea so if we were staying in, I needed to find something to do.

I haven’t done any knitting for sometime as my thumbs can be quite sore, but last night I started to make some fingerless gloves, but found the tips of the bamboo needles very sharp, so changed to some steel needles with more rounded points.  However, they made my arthritic thumbs very sore, so this morning, after finishing off one of the gloves, and wanting to start the other, I Googled what I could do to make the points of the bamboo needles less sharp and pointy.  Good old Google suggested using an emery board gently on the tips of the needles, which I did, and it worked, so this morning I was glad to have something to do to keep my mind off food.  I didn’t want to just stop using the bamboo needles because they cost me over £8 for the pair, so I’m glad to have found a way to make them more rounded.

It made me think what a great idea it would be if only we could do that to ourselves and individuals who “rub us up the wrong way”!  Wouldn’t it be good if we could just find something to make ourselves, and others, less sensitive, less sarcastic, less disapproving and more rounded?  Actually, perhaps we have the answer within ourselves - perhaps we could show more love, compassion, sympathy and understanding and not be so quick to criticise, complain, whine and grumble.

Perhaps this week is a good week to start, with St. Valentine’s Day just a few days away.  

This encouraging prayer of St. Francis sums up what I am saying:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy. 

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive, 
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.