Caffeine Lovers Yarn Swap

I have an ‘addiction’ of sort and it is swaps on Ravelry. The basics of a swap are the following:

You sign up and are assigned a spoilee (the person you send a swap package to) and you receive back in the mail a package from a spoiler (the person who has been assigned to send you a package).

The swap has a price range and depending on the theme of the swap you also exchange items related to them, but the basic item is yarn.

My latest swap was the Caffeine Lovers Swap and here is a picture of what I received from my spoiler, Katie.

Coffee (3 kinds), candles (Citrus-Sage tea lites), Patchouli soap (I love this scent because it reminds me of the health food store and hippies and the counterculture of the 60's that is so vividly imprinted on my mind from my early childhood), a beautiful mug and most importantly YARN. This yarn is particularly nice Cotton blend from Uruguay.

Swaps are particularly meaningful to me because they allow me to practice generosity and giving proper gifts. I grew up with a poor model of gifting and proper gifts and it is important to know how to give gifts (share) and receive graciously gifts. There is an element of embarrassment as I look back over my life to some of the gifts that I have given because I gave gifts out of the wrong motivation or just didn't have a good model for giving. These yarn swaps give me the opportunity to practice giving and to practice receiving.

All of this goes along with a book I just finished during this past Lenten season by Miraslov Volf entitled: Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. I preached a Lenten sermon series using this book as the model and I found the book, which was sent to me because I am a member of the Company of Pastors.

I'ts a good book and I recommend it for reading by anyone wanting to explore on a deeper level the concepts of giving and forgiveness. I know I my sermon series was a success because one of my parishioners asked to borrow the book. I look at yarn swaps in a similar way. They give me the opportunity to give of myself to another person that I don't know and to allow another person to give to me. That's the hard part because I have been so self-reliant due to my background that it is hard for me to receive.

The Company of Pastors helps keep me grounded and focused on ministry and knitting helps me express my creativity and is a great outlet for the frustrations of ministry in that I can turn the agitation into loops of yarn that then become something beautiful.