It's difficult for any left-leaning Christian, much less a right-leaning or middle-ground walking Christian in today's world to feel happy for more than the 30 seconds it might take him or her to realize that she has no right to be happy in today's world. How can one be happy, when others most certainly are not? How can I laugh at Boston Legal knowing there are those without food, much less televisions? How can we be happy when we beat Rainbow Six on medium, with the knowledge that somewhere someone's REAL life is much more gruesome than the grenade launching death "REAPER" [my brother's Playstation 3 handle] just rained down on all the animated terrorists?
I don't know how we CANNOT be happy...because all those people we so pity with our fake guilt, they are happy. Well, maybe they aren't, but they have joy.
Why is it that old negro spirituals fill our songbooks, with each one on a dog-eared and well-worn page; but the songs of happy well-fed rich slave owners are on the pages still white as the day they hit the presses? Why is my church full of people who still insist on worshiping Sunday morning as if the Lord has given them nothing to sing and be happy about? Why moreover, is a church in Uganda or Zaire or those underground in China full of such happy people in the face of our Lord? We eat each day, many Christians do not. We have water, clean water, and many of our brothers and sisters in Christ do not. We have much and we are unhappy - perhaps even ungrateful. They may need our help but they do not need our guilt or pity.
And frankly, it does us no good either.
Look at the eyes of a child who lives in BelAire and has everything he could ever want or need...but has never had to fight to keep it...never had to risk to defend it...then look in the eyes of a child beaten for his faith...starving for food and water...hungry for death as a relief...who's eyes make you sadder? That's always the question we ask...because we would complain to live that way so it must be intolerable...but somehow...the promise is enough for them...
why not for me?
more on this later...but it seems that those burdened always manage to bless me more than I am able to save them
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Scrap Blanket
Most of you who know me, know that I like to knit. I love it - blankets, potholders, scarves, afghans (different than blankets, just so you know), dishcloths, doileys, whatever. I have amassed quite the yarn collection too. You see, whenever you make something, unless it's a really thin scarf, it takes more than one skein [thing] of yarn. And you have to make sure you buy enough for each project the first time around. Yarn is dyed in lots. So if you are making a blanket out of terra cotta brown, all 20 of the terra cotta brown skeins at Hobby Lobby or Michaels or whatever, are not exactly alike. They were dyed 15 or so at a time. Each skein has a dye lot number written on the label. If you need about 8 or 9 skeins to get the job done, you better buy 9 NOW...because you have to make sure you get 9 with the same lot number, so your project has consistency...it would be awful to come back and end up with the last foot of your blanket lookin' a little off...
If you buy yarn like this for years, you end up with a little bit left of all kinds of colors...then of course there's the yarn you can't pass up...you know, the yarn that's usually 4 dollars a skein but's on sale for 99 cents...it would be just perfect for this scarf pattern...that you never get to. So every couple of years or so, I make something out of the scrap yarn. But since law school started for me three years ago this August, I've slown down a little on the knitting, and haven't had the chance to get to a scrap ANYTHING.
Well, today I started on a scrap Afghan. Knitting with two skeins at a time, I'm making a blanket with black as the constant color, and the other will be all the scraps of all the colors I have left. When I finish, the blanket will be black with many colors. There will be some of the orange chennille left over from the UT scarf I made my best friend for his birthday two years ago; frilly pink and purple mixed yarn left from the scarf I made my cousin Erika when she went skiing; red, white & blue yarn from the Obama scarf I made this year, and a different tinted red white & blue mixed yarn from the Bush scarf I made in college. There's green from the blanket I made my mother; UN blue from the blanket I'm making John; purple and white from the ACU blanket I made, and red from the GATA diamond scarf I made Kat. There's various shades of purple left from the blanket I made Shirley, and a small ball of blue mixed from the blanket I made Jay for his 24th birthday. Somehow, somewhere, I bought all this yarn...across the country and across the years, hauling it with me everywhere I go. And even though it's been sitting, stored and sorted by color and kind, for a while - some for years - now I need it. Now I'll use it.
Everytime I make one of these projects - these scrap projects - I'm always amazed at how beautiful they turn out. You'd think that all these mismatched colors, all these undertones and seemingly clashing hues would look absolutely terrible together. But they don't. Somehow, the undertone color makes it all fit...makes it look like somehow I knew I'd need enough Boston-Celtics-In-The-Finals-Again-Green for seven rows of this blanket, but only enough I-Dated-Too-Many-FRATS-And-Not-Enough-Kinsman-Blue for one row. All it takes is that black undercurrent. All it takes is one underlying consistent thought to string it all together. I guess not all that is random is aimless.
Not all who wander are without purpose.
If you buy yarn like this for years, you end up with a little bit left of all kinds of colors...then of course there's the yarn you can't pass up...you know, the yarn that's usually 4 dollars a skein but's on sale for 99 cents...it would be just perfect for this scarf pattern...that you never get to. So every couple of years or so, I make something out of the scrap yarn. But since law school started for me three years ago this August, I've slown down a little on the knitting, and haven't had the chance to get to a scrap ANYTHING.
Well, today I started on a scrap Afghan. Knitting with two skeins at a time, I'm making a blanket with black as the constant color, and the other will be all the scraps of all the colors I have left. When I finish, the blanket will be black with many colors. There will be some of the orange chennille left over from the UT scarf I made my best friend for his birthday two years ago; frilly pink and purple mixed yarn left from the scarf I made my cousin Erika when she went skiing; red, white & blue yarn from the Obama scarf I made this year, and a different tinted red white & blue mixed yarn from the Bush scarf I made in college. There's green from the blanket I made my mother; UN blue from the blanket I'm making John; purple and white from the ACU blanket I made, and red from the GATA diamond scarf I made Kat. There's various shades of purple left from the blanket I made Shirley, and a small ball of blue mixed from the blanket I made Jay for his 24th birthday. Somehow, somewhere, I bought all this yarn...across the country and across the years, hauling it with me everywhere I go. And even though it's been sitting, stored and sorted by color and kind, for a while - some for years - now I need it. Now I'll use it.
Everytime I make one of these projects - these scrap projects - I'm always amazed at how beautiful they turn out. You'd think that all these mismatched colors, all these undertones and seemingly clashing hues would look absolutely terrible together. But they don't. Somehow, the undertone color makes it all fit...makes it look like somehow I knew I'd need enough Boston-Celtics-In-The-Finals-Again-Green for seven rows of this blanket, but only enough I-Dated-Too-Many-FRATS-And-Not-Enough-Kinsman-Blue for one row. All it takes is that black undercurrent. All it takes is one underlying consistent thought to string it all together. I guess not all that is random is aimless.
Not all who wander are without purpose.
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