Over the years, I have done my share of knitting, crocheting, cross stitch, and sewing. However as the years have passed the arthritis in my hands and the slowly but surely progressing macular degeneration in my eyes have made handwork of any kind well nigh impossible. In this time of a global pandemic when we are told to stay home to stay safe, it seems that everyone around me is either knitting up a storm for the grandchildren, for the homeless, for the housebound, painting pictures or cupboards, or even making quilts for posterity. To put it mildly, I was feeling left out of the activity and just a little sorry for myself.
Then this poem came across the screen of my iPad.....
I cannot sew,
I cannot knit,
yet still I stitch,
yet still I stitch
these remnants from another time.
I stitch,
I stitch with words instead
to lay across my feathered bed...
this patchwork quilt".
(Written by Judy Imrie)
And I realized that I could still do all those things -just differently! My mind went immediately to that quote from Ecclesiastes 3: ‘For everything there is a season. A time for every activity under heaven.’ (MSG) We weren’t told that we would be doing all things at once or forever but rather that what everything we do will have its own time.
This is a lesson that COVID has been teaching us - that the things we do today are neither better or worse than the things we did a year ago, just different. Eons ago the writer of Ecclesiastes knew that. We are still struggling with it!
Hi Lynn: Crafts never were my strong point. I attempted to crochet a daisy blanket in which to wrap my first born child for our first journey home from the hospital. It actually got finished about 18 years later. In fact I found some of the daisies in an old tin the other day that never made it to the blanket! Then there were the slippers I tried to knit. The second one was smaller than the first and the third, smaller still. I have been looking for one person with three feet of unequal sizes ever since! At least my craft attempts make a good story. Glad the poem was encouraging and thanks for sharing it on your blog.
ReplyDeleteJudy Imrie
Judy Imrie