"Knit on, with confidence and hope..."

well, I found out last night that the congregation I belong to is probably splitting in two. This is not a good thing because neither portion will probably be large enough to support a church.

I will not talk about the reasons; I do not feel it is honorable to air dirty laundry here, and it also upsets me to contemplate them.

It feels very much like watching a divorce. In fact, it feels not unlike being a child in a divorce...I feel some of the same things that I've heard children of divorces feel (thank God, I never had that burden on me):

Well, I give it up now. I've done what little I can do. I may buy my own Advent wreath for my house, and light a candle and do a reading each Sunday, if nothing else. I have heard of "solitary Wiccans" but I don't know if it's possible to be a "solitary Christian". But right now, I'm so fed up with dealing with people in a congregation that I just might try....

ah me. I say "I hate people" as shorthand for "I tend to have overly idealistic thoughts about how people should behave, and they seem to have infinite capacity for disappointing me." And right now, I really hate people.

If I may be very childish and very self-centered, I'd like to say that this all makes me angry in part because it is taking away from my enjoyment of and relaxation after the tenure decision. It's spoiling my enjoyment of the run-up to the Advent season. I want to lie down on a floor somewhere and kick and scream that it's not FAIR, it's not FAIR that I got everything going well in my life and not I have some other stupid stress to deal with.

In knitting news, I did start the "Prairie Stripes" afghan of Homespun. It seems, these days, I am much more inclined to work on the dead-simple all-stockinette or all-garter projects. I think that says something about my current stress level. I am contemplating starting the "Bookworm Vest" from "Folk Vests" as well. (And wanting to start a lot of projects is also indicative of my stress level).