Indulging in other crafts

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From a UK craft magazine at least twenty years ago, but now it's done!

No sewing occurred over the weekend, but I dabbled in other crafts hearkening to my past. Past Me needs some props, for starting the cross-stitching above that I completed with ease. I uncovered this kit a couple of months ago, and in finishing it, I found why I had given up halfway, a mistake made in the pale blue floss. Skirting around that error, I happily stitched trees, then added the backstitching in that bold red. It will be a for a dearheart in a little over a month's time.

I then dug out my cross-stitching bag, finding pieces of my creative past long before I dreamed of quilting. Yet working with my hands has mattered for AGES, first in crocheting right after I had my eldest child. Once we moved to Britain I got into cross-stitching, and now in Humboldt County that pastime has emerged with stealth, lol. Not sure how much more I'll do of it, although a HUGE project remains, about on par with my Alexandria quilt. More about that if I end up committing some time to it.

As for crocheting, a couple of weeks ago I bought two skeins of acrylic yard for cowls. Nothing fancy, just a double stitch in a circle, and I might get four cowls out of one skein, woo-hoo! I started the other this evening, the bluish one below. Two different kinds of yarn and both are fine. And so far, so is my shoulder, hah!

I've been vacillating between peace and unsettled ponderings, when not crafting or pouring over Home and Far Away, which I am hoping to upload maybe on Wednesday. My musings have centered on how heartless are GOP politicians, the government shutdown and ACA subsidies being cut making for dismal situations. That most, if not all, of these politicians are Christians make me wonder what version of Scripture they are reading, because caring for widows and orphans figures HEAVILY in both the Old and New Testaments. My peace returns when I accept other than prayer and contact made with said politicians, I can't do squat about the cruelties being perpetrated in the name of.... Exactly why are these Christians acting so opposite to Christ? I wish I knew, because I cannot fathom their actions in regard to a loving, merciful God.

Also on my mind, not much related, but still poking me like a sharp stick, are the pictures of grandchildren on my computer's screen saver. I nearly titled this post Magical days, in regard to thinking of when all those kids were tiny, how carefree we all were, how innocent those moments seem. As mystifying as Christian politicians cutting SNAP benefits and health care subsidies and countless other selfish, greedy, and downright MEAN actions is how one day we will (hopefully) move past all this wickedness so that my grandkids will know liberty and joy. That maybe I won't be fretting about the state of my country, although if I could separate myself from the evil in Washington, DC, relying on my own faith more, well....

Well is a deep subject, and as Dana Noth's father told her, why is even deeper. Why are people so insensitive and dismissive to the needs of others, why are people so afraid of loving others, why, why, why... Do these Christian politicians fear there is not enough assistance to go round, that God will run out of love, that acting in love lowers them in some inane manner? Asinine is a better word, but then that makes me sound judgemental, and I don't want to be judgy. Or to be that judgy.

One of my first cross stitches; displayed on the wall over my computer monitor, I wonder what Jesus thinks of all we humans inflict upon one another.

Yet as a Christian, I am sickened at the behaviours of my sisters and brothers in Christ, those in Congress who claim to love the same Jesus I do, yet have no love for others. They are clanging bells and noisy gongs (1 Corinthians 13:1). To deny necessary benefits is like cutting out widows and orphans, and God has no truck for that (Malachi 3:5, Psalm 68:5-6, James 1:27). I am wholly stymied at the stingy, greedy, callous attitude of these Christian politicians, and while I didn't mean for this post to devolve into a major vent against my nation's government, here it is. Because this has been on my mind, in my heart, troubling my soul.

I'm not a fool; no government is perfect. What America has now is so IMPERFECT, I don't know how God is going to get us back to something that resembles His amazing love for us. Thankfully, it's not up to me to plot out that storyline. But I have to have hope that all these awful deeds will be righted, maybe in my lifetime, maybe. Maybe the grandkids' lifetimes. Maybe the innocent, magical days will return without too many being harmed, as few lives lost as possible.

Faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13) Thanks St. Paul, and may this be so as soon as is feasible.

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