Like two steps, or two feet or two hands

two rows at a time the projects get done. One round, two hands, sunrise and sunset, the world goes around. And just like that it’s thanksgiving ago=ain and everyone is talking about that day with a color name in front of it. (that would be Black Friday for those who haven’t heard it lately.)

Crochet is really a series of knots. Loops and loops hooked through each other. Before the hook moves a million times there is one long forever string of hopefulness. Now it is all tied up in knots.

Okay that’s not really how it works, but when I’m all tied up in knots that could mean that I am stressing out over a skein of yarn that a puppy got ahold of. That is a regular mess. Thank goodness Honey has taken to being a sock third instead of stealing balls of yarn.

Frayed knots. Strung up. Wound too tight. Stressed out, All done in. Does it sound like the holidays are coming at your house too? How can I turn this fast moving river of time into a sun kissed misty rainbow?there’s never enough time to make all the crafts I think of for Christmas. Most of which I think of at the midnight hour. If I am ever going to be serious about Christmas crafting I shall have to buy all of my supplies right after Christmas to begin for the next year’s holiday. Do you know someone like that? I’ve never been that good at planning ahead. That’s why I’ll be all tied up in knots trying to get things done.

How I want to celebrate the holiday season is completely different that everyone else. Hearing more about a certain day of the year proceeded by it’s color has started to make me a bit edgy. Is that even a word? The focus of all conversation and purchasing plans makes me wonder if this consumerism driven holiday has been given the wrong name. Why should “Black Friday” occupy so much talk and Christ’s name be attached to spending more and more money?

I am not anti-family meals. Or anti-family game time. Or anti-playing with the little children. Or anti-giving. But I am anti-all the stuff that gets thrown away. I am anti-scheduling hours just for gift opening. I am anti-trying to come up with a twenty dollar purchase for someone who would probably be better of spending the money in their own way and me visiting with them for thirty minutes about life. Maybe I am anti!

The statistics are being circulated that Christmas around the world is not like Christmas in the United States. In other countries Christians can expect to die at Christmas for gathering to have communion, read Schriptures, or pray. It’s not that fear of death is a more blessed Christmas experience. It’s just a different focus.

Now that I rattled off my “mouth” for a bit, lets get back to the focus of the week. Thanksgiving. Watching television the other night, it was no surprise to see the focus on telling other people thanks. I missed the Snoopy special on Thanksgiving. It is one of the rare finds yet during this month of November that actually tells the pilgrim’s story of giving thanks to the Creator.

Another of my favorite contemplative songs is from the musical Fiddler On The Roof. In it the mother and father sing the woes of getting older one sunrise and sunset at a time. So this year as I recount all the year’s happenings, I am drawn to think of all the crochet projects and garden plants that made the year go by. Whether its projects at work, children’s birthdays, illnesses or hospitalizations, one day at a time the year marches by. Once again Thanksgiving has arrived and God’s blessings to me cannot possible be recounted. they have happened each 24 hour period at a time and it would take too much time to tell them all. His abundance is greater than all the sands on the beaches, Greater than every single crochet stitch ever made this year. Like two steps, two feet or two hands, God continues to pour out His love towards me two rows of a crochet project at a time. Thanks be to god for His abundant love.