Some Days Are Just Better Than Others

    My counted cross stitch project is progressing. If I relied on cross stitch to be my source of income, I'd probably be a bit worried at this point, since I'm not setting any production records. However, it is diverting. When I get out my project, of course the first thing I have to do is spend a good fifteen minutes figuring out where I am and what's next.
    Like everything else in life, each foray gets a little easier. I can see more, and see more more quickly, each time. I am also little by little getting faster on the stitching itself. Oddly, I am more comfortable with the needle in my right hand. I think that's odd since I am left handed.

   I have become increasingly fascinated with the idea that work is part of the "life of the world to come" that we profess in the last line of the Nicene Creed.I think there will be plenty that needs to be done in that new world, just as I am sure that Adam and Eve had plenty to keep them busy in the Garden. But it will be stuff that makes sense, it will be things that feel good to do. 
   Working for money, especially when money becomes the only measure of the morality of the work, creates a tension that saps the beauty from work.
   What if everybody pitched in and got done what needed to be done today?  I understand that in hunter-gatherer cultures that we consider "primitive," the daily work of the community takes up about 20% of the day, and the rest of the time is given over to enjoying life. We all could be done with work by lunch time if we did only the right stuff, and if we could have a couple of other people to help us out. If everyday was Take a Friend to Work Day, everybody would have a job. Then, after lunch, we could do cross stitch, or play baseball or write a book. I really think that's the way God intends the world to come to be run.
    I watched our family yesterday trying to live out that kind of  plan on earth -- you know, the way it might be done in heaven. We were one and all busy with the various tasks that make the household go. Everyone was pleasant, everyone did what they could and what was needed. Then Lillian went off to friend's house, John and Alex immersed themselves in gaming on the computer, Sand did some writing, and I picked up the cross stitch. Then later, John went to the store, and brought back a raspberry bundt cake...for me.
   God (and life) is good.