There are quilts that I can price within reach of people who want a splash of beauty on their beds. Log cabin, Irish Chain, Star of Bethlehem are all patterns I have done many times and can finish in three afternoons. There were others however that involved meticulous steps with paper piecing, like stained glass, a Harry Potter quilt, and a snowflake design that had fifteen hundred triangles. 

 

Last week I made a rainbow pineapple of batik fabric which required ten hours for its five hundred trapezoids.  Then I tackled a miniature version of the same which took more than fifty per cent longer, because of the need to rip off the paper guides on the back. All told it has eight hundred pieces. 

 

The end result is only twenty five by thirty inches, not enough to keep more than your feet warm. Still it gives me joy to look at it. Which I am now. 

 

Yet no one could afford it. 

 

When I ponder other gifts that are unaffordable, the list is long. A body that can mostly carry out my wishes increases in worth when I hear what people go through to repair a kidney, or eradicate cancer. If I calculate the cost endured by my parents to help my mother navigate mental illness I cherish my own stability all the more.  The freedom I enjoy to do my job, is more precious than ever given the tumbling economy. The myriad choices in the grocery store stand in stark contrast to famine on the other side of the planet. When I open Spotify the array of incredible music available defies description. 

 

It seems that God lives in an alternate universe to the one dependent on cash flow.  

 

 

"Ho, everyone that thirsts come to the waters. And he who has no money, come, buy and eat. Yes come buy wine and milk, without money and without price. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread? And labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat that which is good. Let your soul delight in abundance." Isaiah 55