The Sylvr Pen

Confession: This isn’t really the second “Hands On What’s On Hand” thing I worked on. It’s actually yesterday’s effort in fabric or fiber. 

But it so fits both with the next post, also on the Sermon on the Mount, and with my vision’s decided, mysterious improvement, that this piece cries out to find its place here.

When I suddenly realized last week that I could see print previously indecipherable, my fingers itched to discover whether my eyes would enable them to finish this project after all.

You see, I had completely given up on it. And it grieved me.

I started this decades ago! Yup, it was one of those projects that drags on through a lifetime, that you only get around to now and then. If you do handicrafts, maybe you know what I mean.

It was never easy. The gauge is about as fine as counted cross-stitch can get, and the colors of some threads against the background which I (unwisely) chose contrasted so little, they slowed my work, kept my stitching sessions short, and often prompted procrastination, for years!

But how curious I was now! Had my eyes improved so much that I’d be able to stitch this precious piece of scripture?

I went and pawed through my needlework bag, fished it out, wrinkles and all, and gave the endeavor a try.

I am elated to report that it’s happening! It looks like I will actually complete it! (I plan to keep at it by stitching a little each weekday till it’s finished. Then I’ll show it here. (That promise makes me accountable.)

As I stitch these words, may I consider what Jesus was teaching His disciples with them, what He desired in them — and all His followers.

And let me use this as my personal inventory, to evaluate my attitude each day. Like this:

Am I poor in spirit? Am I aware of my beggarly status, of how helpless I am, without Him, to do anything good?

Isn’t my ability now to do this project a perfect picture of that? I can’t attribute my “impossible” visual improvement, which enables it, to anything but God Himself! What’s obvious in this case is true about any other good thing I hope to do. Jesus said so (John 15:5).

Do I mourn the things that grieve God?  (Like my own sinful attitudes that can so abruptly arise?)

Am I meek? For me, Strong’s Expanded Dictionary gives a most helpful explanation of the Greek word so translated:

“Praetes… consists not in… ‘outward behavior only, nor… in… relations to… fellow-men; [nor] in… mere natural disposition. …it is the inwrought grace of the soul; …the exercises of it… are chiefly toward God… in which we accept His dealings with us as good,  and therefore without disputing or resisting… also… in the face of…even… evil men, out of a sense that these… are permitted and employed by Him for the chastening and purifying of His elect.’”

Do I hunger after righteousness?

Am I merciful? (The merciful don’t just refrain from vengeance, but have a generous spirit.)

Am I pure, not only in actions, but also in heart?

Do I have the heart of a peacemaker?

Am I willing to do the right thing, even if I will suffer and be persecuted for it?

What promises Christ gives for those who live these beatitudes!

*****

Even though I came to realize how there are tens of thousands of reasons,

Counting from where I left off…

REASONS TO PRAISE HIM IN THE BEATITUDES:

Because He promises that…

• 484 – His Kingdom belongs to the poor in spirit and those who do what’s right even if it brings persecution, instead of to such as win control of earthly kingdoms by bullying and manipulation and robbery and deceit 
• 485 – the meek shall inherit the earth instead of the arrogant, the surly, the malcontents
• 487 – the merciful shall obtain mercy
• 488 – the peacemakers shall be called His children
• 489 – those persecuted for His sake have great reward in heaven.
• 490 – He did not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill all.

convolution… 1a a form or shape that is folded in curved or torturous windings.” (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. Bold emphasis mine.)

[Imagine a photo here, of a road sign warning, “Winding road, next five miles,” followed  by a couple shots of twisting, turning roadway. Driving out to capture them is not yet advised, due to Hurricane Sandy’s passing.]

Writer’s block or writer’s dearth (of ideas) is not my problem right now. 

My problem is having so much to tell that I don’t know what to write and post first, second, third… even when I thought I had one series of posts (then another) all mapped out in my mind.

God does a miracle and throws me off my course! Now I have a lot of other things to say, and the pathway of my life looks to be veering sharply in a whole different direction!

God is like that.

If there’s anything I’ve been learning lately it’s that God is unpredictable. Oh, He’s totally truthful and reliable and faithful to His promises, but the way He fulfills those promises, and lays out His plans for us, often surprises the careful reasoning right out of people like me!

You can’t get ahead of God. You can’t second guess Him. His thoughts and His ways are higher (way higher) than ours (Is 55:8-9). He knows the plans He has for us (Jr 29:11 NIV), but the secret things belong to God (Deut 29:29), and we do well not to think too far beyond the next step He has waiting, right in front of us, for us to take.

I read scriptures like Proverbs 3:6 and think A-to-B movement from start to ultimate destination.

But the Hebrew word in it that comes from “straight” (“direct”) is almost always used figuratively. And figurative meaning can utterly differ from literal. As, an “upright” man may have a badly bent back, or even lie constantly prone due to disablement, say from persecution. To keep going “straight” for a recovering alcoholic may mean taking routes that circumvent old haunts too tempting. To “straighten up and fly right” can mean… what? Interpreting that saying literally ends us up in confused contradiction.

Following God and taking the path that He directed (“made straight”) took Abraham here and there, left and right, up and down, at different times. Same for Paul, for whom following God’s missionary track for him led him in convoluting paths.

God’s direction for me, which I thought I (might have) had figured out, now seems to have made an abrupt turn, and I am still processing this thing that has happened to me. What I’m now writing, starting in my personal journal, focuses mainly on this processing.

Meanwhile, I don’t want to lose the two blogging threads I already began. And husband advises, “Write it all down so you don’t forget it.”

So today, still soggy from Sandy, with millions out of electrical power and therefore internet connection, is an opportune time to hover over a keyboard. I may post nothing (after this) for a few days, or I may publish clusters of posts on the three different (sub)themes twining around each other on this blog.

Twisting, twirling, and twining seem to be the main theme here right now, don’t they?

Something has happened!

To me!

First you should know that people have been praying. For my eyesight.

You also need to know that modern medical science says corneal deterioration from Fuchs’ dystrophy (like mine) doesn’t get better, only worse. It NEVER just improves.

Well, guess what?

Saturday night:

He has a DVD he wants to watch. As it enters its little rectangular receptacle with that familiar whirring sound, I glance idly at its case left on the coffee table, and read the words on the back. Crisp black words on white background. So clear…

Clear? Too clear! This size font hasn’t looked clear to me for some time, no matter how bright the contrast.

But now it does!

Puzzled, I try the smallest print, at the bottom.

I’m reading it!

What’s going on?

I think of the miniature books we have, each about two by three inches in size, with really teensy print… If I can read that…! (I haven’t been able to for several years…)

Excited, but wary, I slip over to the bookcase, pluck a tiny volume from the shelf, open at random…

And read! Aloud to Husband, who peeks at the text. He can’t read it! (Without his glasses.) Only the nearsighted and clear-eyed can. Which, in our family, used to be me. Used to.

And right now is again!

I pick another random page, read aloud, now wide-eyed.

Pill bottles! Pill bottle labels have been driving me crazy these days with their microscopic letters. Have been…

I hurry out of the living room, through dining room and kitchen to fling open the bathroom medicine cabinet door. I seek out the smallest print I can find — and read it! (Another pill bottle, then another, then back to the living room to try the dim-print-on-cheap-paper of the James Herriot book whose pages blurred before me previously… Now? No problem!) 

Slipping on my glasses, I look up toward the flat-screen and watch. The signs, titles, captions on the video all come through to my brain. Clear!

Then I remember Wednesday, when I drove errands. None of the usual blurring and distortion hindered and disturbed…

I also think of how, lately, I’ve been reading my KJV without any trouble, even the small print it uses for Revelation’s praises –- a Bible I hardly touched anymore because it grew too hard to read.

Also, yesterday, reading somebody’s blog, I thought, “Man, this uses tiny lettering!”  Yet I was reading it!

I itch to go driving next day. Getting to that seminar to which we’re invited will take 40 minutes, partly on often bustling highway. Driving this kind of road had become unsafe for me. But now? Husband will be with me, and can take over if I can’t see well at any point…

So next day (Sunday), we go, I drive, and highway lettering stands out clearly, even with mist and fog and high humidity (trouble makers for my eye condition).

“What happened?” someone asks.

I don’t know. I can’t explain, except…

“I once was [going] blind, but now I see!” And people have been praying: some that my vision wouldn’t get worse, but a few asking the “impossible”: vision improvement! Recently I finally put my own fingers on my closed eyes and asked God, if He willed, to heal them.

So.

Hallelujah!

I don’t deserve this. I really, really don’t. Just this week I was resenting my limitations!

Nevertheless, He blesses. Who can fathom His ways?

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name!” (Ps 103)

This. opens. doors…

*****

Linked to

What’s bright blue and fluffy and light and compliant? What makes colored dust bunnies all over the living room floor? What can be transformed like magic into one of a thousand different lovely, useful things?

This,

once it’s prepared like this

and lying in eager hands, feeding into a spinning wheel orifice, like this…

becoming this…

and then, who can even guess what?

“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you…” (1 Thess 4:11 NIV)

“She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands” (Pro 31:13).

DAY ONE: Prepping and spinning royal blue semi-luster wool…

It’s been awhile since I’ve taken time out solely to sit here by the front window and treadle the foot works and flow the wool into yarn. To sit without something simultaneous going, like movie dvd on the now blank flat-screen or baritone voice across the room reading a shared experience of novel or history or biography.

The only show plays outside my window, more static than some action flick but every bit as captivating: the vivid hues of those sister oaks standing sentry beside the driveway, lit by low-slant afternoon sun rays, drama-set against ashen gray backdrop of maples and poplars already nude.

I could have fetched a recording before starting, could have sat and listened while flyer whirled. But something precious lies in uninvaded quiet, punctuated only by foot treadle rhythm and whisper of well-oiled wooden works.

The coiled snake of roving shrinks and shortens and disappears altogether as the spool fattens up with deep blue yarn.

Another roving, more wool twisting and winding on, and after a time of quiet foot-and-hand work, another filled spool to remove.

Such a pile of this silky long fiber has languished too long in its vast basket. How good to see it becoming!

And what will it become from this, henceforth? That’s a future adventure to decide. Part of a weaving, perhaps—a shawl or a throw or even a vest or cape, I think, considering Sheep Betsy who gave it to us, with her unique characteristics and gifts.

The wheel spins ’round and the flyer twirls, and were young ones watching, their eyelids would droop, blink, droop lower, and soon small heads would nod sidewise, eyes surrendered shut.

Such drowsy peace often overcomes the restless, sleepless spinner, that once I used to steal downstairs in night’s dark to soothe my soul to brink of dreams.

It is a good thing, this spinning, so much for its own sake that I tend to twist and ply the yarn and wrap it into skeins or wind it into square-ish balls, then make of them arrangements to accessorize a matching room’s décor, hung from pegs or piled in bowls or baskets, symbols of being, and becoming.

*****

Linked to

I’ll get to further biblical considerations about blogging in later posts (God willing). Right now I’m having too much fun that I want to share…

Ironically (I regret to say), it started with a pity party.

Opportunity had dangled aloft before me. I’d thought I’d grasp it and travel with friends—to a rave-drawing yearly fiber arts festival.

I reached out eager fingers. All I had to do was manage to meet the friends at point A about an hour’s drive from my home—by five AM! From there we’d chat away a happy four hours accompanied by humming of tires, then revel in wooly wonders and cotton confections, watch demos of delightful textile tools and techniques, sample five-star foods, purchase more than we’d planned, and toward evening start making breathless return to point A, from which I’d travel back home.

One problem: Bad vision and good sense prevent my motoring major highways and unfamiliar roads alone anytime, and even small, familiar back roads in early hours before vision clears or at full days’ end, when fatigue fogs and distorts the view.

Easy assumed solution: Husband always holds up the offer of driving me almost anywhere—at any reasonable time.

Reasonable time. That was the catch! I’d forgotten! Post-festival morning, the calendar now informed me, he had a preaching date.

I didn’t even ask him. Good stewardship of his monthly responsibility at a nearby prison calls for adequate sleep as well as preparation.

Oh well, canceling my trip didn’t bother me much, really, I told myself. There was always next year… 

But Friday morning I woke up sinning! The sin of resentment. Suddenly I was resenting my hindered mobility, my lessening eyesight, resenting having to get someone to drive me about like a child. If I could just hop into my car and take off by myself in wee dark hours and return in day’s end darkness—like I would have done all my previous adult life…

My tell-yourself-the-truth conscience admonished me: “Your resentment is toward the good Lord God Who loves you with infinite wisdom.”

I knew that, but my fleshly emotions kept whining sporadically within.

I prayed and wrestled the inner conflict with thanksgiving, for benefits of warm bed and extra sleep on Saturday morning, for some time to myself to be still, and even for what I didn’t like.  

At some point a light shone into the pit my grappling had made and revealed a ladder. An email appeared, asking, should they pick up anything for me there?

At first I envisioned a small car overloaded, inside and out, a number of gadgets and bundles tied on top! But wait! What about all the materials and equipment I already had around me, sitting idle? (“Yeah,” Conscience agreed. “Shouldn’t you use some of that before you go buy more stuff?”)

I’d been reading others’ “31 Days” posts. How about starting one of my own (very late-blooming), about venturing one new thing each day with fiber or fabric or related equipment already at hand?

Conscience approved.

That proposition was my ladder, and each day’s stepping onto a new, untraveled rung has been lifting me higher, higher, past neutral feelings to decided delight!

So, coming up: some oddball “31 Days” type posts, probably intermittent, with several ventures sometimes bunched together, and interspersed with posts about scriptural light on blogging.

And so, probably next: A Home Spun Day to Rejoice in.