Can't Sew. Drooling......well.... Google-ing.

Having recently PURCHASED A PINK SEWING MACHINE!! ... I think I may be ready to call it a life. This proud new owner has been Wasting ... Investing an impressive amount of time on the internet, and have yet to find that anyone else in the human world has a pink sewing machine by the name of "American Home". Never mind a PINK sewing machine that is also DELUXE, and has PRECISION!

Here's how it all went down. Our humble town has become somewhat of a suburb of late. We've got all these swanky new uptown developments with cul de sacs and fancy bay names and goose dropping lakes behind walk-out basements. Keeping up with the Joneses, so to speak, our humble little thrift shop started to feel a bit cramped and inferior. So it did what any good money scrimping Mennonite organization would do. It bought the old chicken murdering spot and covered the blood splatters and wet feathers with new carpet and lead paint. Then the volunteers and cast-off distributers hoarded stuff for a few months and carefully arranged it tidily in the killing-field-turned-mission-field thrift shop.

Much to my dismay, I couldn't make it to the grand opening on March 11. I did a great deal of deep breathing (and even considered deep knee bends but thought better of it), to ward off the stress- imagining all those less deserving people scooping up all the good stuff. As soon as possible, I did make my way downtown to check out the new digs. There, way up on a self above the fortrel fabric scraps was the most beautiful piece of machinery in the whole world. I almost had to walk away. The visual stimulation was too much, and I was already clutching the mother load of old carded buttons. "Self", I said. "This is a machine. This machine is much bigger than a button, or a bedspread that you could at least justify by turning into a Darfur bag or a summer tent, or a parasail or something. One does not simply wander into a store one day and pick up a sewing machine. It is not done. It is not sensible. It is not necessary".

And so I listened. I took my buttons home, played with them, lined them up, put them in a pretty coloured dish and feasted my eyes on them.

And then I thought about the pink sewing machine.

The following week, I went back into the store. I wandered around, chatted with the townspeople, kissed the babies, and pretended to be casual about the machine high up on the shelf. "Probably really heavy", I told myself. "You already have two sewing machines, you know. You've got your bernina- undeniably the least stupid thing you've ever invested in. You've also got your old black singer that came in the great old treddle cupboard. Now you're just being ridiculous. Go home, make some borscht or something".

So, once again I listened. All the way to the following Saturday- when some mysterious gravitational force propelled me back down main street, entirely against my will. I pretended to look at the dishes, the bedspreads, the toys, all the while knowing that I was being controlled by a force much greater than my own. A force so powerful, that I soon found myself not only standing beside the pink beauty once again, but reaching upwards to lay hands upon it. "Wouldn't hurt to look at it. I'll see that it's much too heavy to be sensible, that the price is inflated, and that the bobbin winder is hopelessly broken. Then I'll go home and do something sensible like sew nappies for the poor or something. On the two machines that I already have".

I got it down from the high shelf. I laid it on the floor. I chewed my cuticles. My heart began to sing and pound and I felt I could have danced all night. (but then I reoriented to time and place.... BAD idea.) There was a piece of fabric underneath the presser foot that indicated perfect tension. There was a lovely metal banner splashed across its bosom boasting "American Home". There was no price tag, so I thought it best to approach the manager. Surely she would see that I was interested in the thing and she would automatically inflate the price, being mindful of those far, far away mission places that needed my money more than I do.

She didn't.
She whispered "twenty-five dollars" into my hungry little ear.

I remembered that I had four children to feed, Easter lillies to buy, and soccer, basketball, flute, and youth retreat fees to pony up. I remembered whining about those very things only a few short lifetimes earlier. They rang emptily in my head at I gazed at that little vixen.
I simply had to have it. Sure, I had a white one, and a black one, but a PINK one? Never even seen such a thing. I remembered that $35.00 I had won in December for the local paper's writing contest. I remembered saying that I would use that money for something monumental, since I would always think of it as the first money I made piecing words together.

Surely this was providence.

Surely, this machine could not belong in any home other than this one. Not only is it precise, and deluxe, and pink.... it operates like a dream. I kid you not.

There are a few quirks. The foot pedal is not a foot pedal at all, but a knee pedal. In its original form, it came in a sewing case or cupboard and the pedal was mounted to the side for the right knee to operate. Because the cupboard is no longer in existance, but my determination is in season, and abundant... I spent some time learning how to hold the fabric with my left hand, and operate the pedal and the reverse button simultaneously with my right hand.

Might have to look into the feasability of grafting a third arm onto self.

With All These Planks and Splinters Piling Up, Brian Just May Get That Addition Yet

Recently, any spare brain space has been dominated by thoughts of hidden forms of judgementalism and how unnatural the practise of grace can be. Lessons learned at the thrift shop, coupled with an amazing series on total forgiveness at church right now has brought about a desire for greater freedom in this whole area of grace.

What I really want is for people who bug me to change, but the other thing the preacher-guy said that stuck long and fast in my head is that the common denominator in all our problems is the "me" factor. I'm in all of my problems, every single one. So it seemed sensible to try and redirect my telepathic messages from the thrift shop legalists back to "me" and see what I could do to contribute in a more positive way. Enter: Pumpkin loaf. I thought I'd bake an extra loaf, slice it up and put it on a plate left over from my bridal party (a plate I really don't need back, and I'm tired of seeing kids eat toast off of: "Happy 25th Anniversary!"...). I wrote a little note for the thrift shop volunteers and tucked it in with the loaf. With two kids filling the double stroller, I balanced the plate of loaf and my handbag up top of the sun shade that we clearly wouldn't be needing that day. We strolled through 80 mile an hour winds past the church, over the crooked sidewalk, past the other church, through the parking lot, over the footbridge, and into the parking lot of the thrift shop.

That's when the plate fell.

Pumpkin loaf with shards. Didn't seem all that gracious. I considered stealing a 25 cent plate and transferring the loaf over... but there was still the risk of razory bits of "Happy 25th Anniversary!" clinging to the underside of the bread so I thought better of it. It also struck me as pretty ironic to go snitching things in the thrift store when what I wished they would do is stop treating their customers with such suspicion. Well, I'd have to try to behave graciously instead and in this case, that appeared to include keeping the pumpkin loaf to myself.

I did a quick scour of the place for vintage bits of this and that for my sewing projects. Then the kids and I went to pay. As I approached the cash out, the woman made a comment about my bag; something to the tune of, "Oh! She's got a bag like that too!"

"Bag like what?" , I had to know.

That's when it came out about the volunteer who had come in, toting one of my roomy bags-for-Darfur and was asked to leave her "backpack" at the front, lest she should go about stealing their precious, dented donations. Well, it seemed like an oppurtunity to me. So I launched into how disappointed I had been to hear this tale, how sure I was that neither of the two of them would ever treat a customer so suspiciously, how this was a place all about God and his love, and that if people chose to sin by stealing, wasn't that between them and God? Wasn't it wonderful that they donated their time, and could spend the day making people feel welcome and happy to be in such a place of good service?

The women half-nodded in sort-of-confused, token agreement. Then with a toss of the head, pointed out a customer from a different religious perspective, and leaned closer to me. "You have to watch those people"; she shared with me conspiritively, "I once saw a woman leave the store with things in her hand that she never paid for. Why would people come into a place like this, that's for missions, and steal things when the prices are already so low?"

Her partner nodded vigorously.
"Yes, you sure have to watch those kind of people."

And with that, I gathered up my planks and splinters, my shards, crumbs and the kids.
With my addiction to thrift shopping, I imagine that God will have many more oppurtunities to try and help me work my way through this whole grace thing.
So far, I mostly have stuff to haul around.

Sorry, but its Hard to See With This Plank In My Eye

How deeply lines rivet the faces of those whose role in life is that of keeping other people from sinning. How precious and valuable used, unwanted, chipped, sweat-stained, and skin follicle speckled junk is. What great responsibility to protect it, to ensure it is securely and diligently locked up so that only the keeper of the key can unlock the bounty of those one dollar and fifty cent broaches and belly rings. How critical to maintain the integrety of these objects so that good may be done. This good which will be bestowed upon the great and blessed field far, far away. Visited by few, the field is vaguely known by the glossy pictures carefully fastened to white walls- gleaming pictures of cleansed field dwellers whose lives have been eternally changed from dusty monotony to ceaseless gratitude.

How tremendously rewarding and exciting it must be to deliver this good news to that land far far away. Surely it would not be as complex as being the keeper of the keys here in the Land of the Plank. It takes a great deal of commitment to confiscate backpacks and large handbags at the door, lest untrustworthy locals should be found allowing merchandise to fall into their greedy folds. Its no small task to sleuth about the place, scowling down at children and sticky-fingered mothers who are surely in this place to take and take and take, never once thinking of the good that could be done to those in the field far, far away. Or what of the responsibility to ensure that no one should fondle an item yet unpriced!! Or slip an item with a pink tag into their satchel on bag sale day when the signs clearly read blue tags; priced $5.00 and under! (no fabric, no tea towels, no pretty things, no vintage things, no laughing, no smiling, and certainly, no dancing, drinking, or loitering). No, nor shall we support the hedonistic pleasures of campers, seeking to purchase a cooling receptable whose exterior clearly depicts bottles of Coors, or Labatts, or Kokanee. Woe to the fingers of the fallen pricer who brought such an abominable thing of shame onto the floor.

These are the thankless, unrecognized duties of those who were left behind. Their pictures will never smile from a brochure that promises tax deductable receipts to support the efforts of those lucky messengers of good in that land far away. In that place, surely the good is always well received and its recipients never fall into traps of greed and carelessness like the lowly, base thrift shoppers from the land of plenty. Surely their men marry women without question. Surely their mothers teach children to be seen and not heard. Surely all its people have learned the value of not asking questions; not challenging the status quo.

But someone must stay behind to ensure that the cracked and faded donated things don't get all dirtied up by some local before the proceeds can be used for some good. Somebody must ensure that some local doesn't carry off the merchandise improperly priced, or taken from behind a staff only sign, or that backpacks and large handbags don't get stuffed with eight tracks and cd games from the cheerio boxes seven years ago. Somebody has got to stay behind to make sure there are no toys in the area that the kids are allowed to play in. They might carelessly damage one, and what good would that do?

Its a diry job, but someone's got to make sure that nobody is doing anything wrong. No good could come of it.