Last evening I spent a few hours with about 15 other women who were knitting or crocheting. What a great time we had at the Heavenly Ewes yarn shop located in the Parables bookstore in Arnold, MO! I didn't actually do very much sock knitting (my current project) because I was teaching two crochet beginners. After crocheting for over 40 years it is sometimes easy to forget how hard it was to get all the fingers, yarn and hook in the right place and how awkward it feels at first. We had a good time of fellowship.
I really wanted to purchase at least one new book on knitting socks but I refrained and just got the set of needles I had been wanting. They are a 5 needle set double point bamboo, about 5 inches long in size 0. They look like fat tooth pics, they are so small. I had about 20 minutes at the end of the evening to try them out on my sock and they are wonderful! I think I am fast becoming a convert to bamboo.
We talked about lots of things, one of which was praying in public, and at one point I told a story about when I was chaplain for a professional secretaries organization about 15 years ago. I was honored to be asked to serve as chaplain and was told I would open in prayer and give a very short little devotional. So the first month I prayed and gave a short devotional using a scripture as reference. I noticed a few women squirming a little and took it to mean I talked too long. (not unusual for me!) So the next month I prayed and did a shorter devotional, again using scripture. The following week one of the officers called me to say that I must stop using God, or Jesus, or Christ in my prayer. I only know one way to pray and that is in Christ's name. I was told that some people found it offensive, they were atheists or Jewish, etc. and I had to keep the prayer very generic. I asked her in whose name was I to pray and she said just to leave that part out, it didn't really make any difference anyway and we didn't want to offend anyone. She also told me that using scripture during the devotional could not continue either. I should just use a short, uplifting anecdote. I was so shocked by what she said that it took me a few minutes to collect myself, I just couldn't believe she was serious and said so. She was very serious. So I told her that I seriously could not continue to be part of an organization that made these requirements and resigned from the office of Chaplain and shortly later disassociated myself from the organization.
I hadn't thought about that incident in a long time but just thinking about it last night still caused amazement. It made me even more thankful that I now work for two guys who profess to be Christians, that I can associate with a group of women outside of my own church who find importance in the same things I do, that I still live in a country where at least in public I can pray if I so choose. Sometimes I forget those things and it is nice to be reminded.
I saw some very nice projects last night, there are many very talented needle workers in the group and I hope to learn a lot from several of them. I think next time that I will take some bead crochet, there were a few requests for lessons.
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