![]() Art and quilts are everywhere!Īrtist, quilter, and designer Heather Jones has taken the everyday inspirations and gathered them for her new book “Quilt Local.” The book opens her vision of how everyone can explore and expand their creative spirit in what might seem ordinary and turn it into something extraordinary. ![]() Their color palette is created from everyday life experiences to enhance the piece they are creating whether it is a painting, drawing, sculpture or a quilt. Suddenly the time and energy required to clean up after an ox seems a lot more worth it.Ask a room of artists, “Where do you find your inspiration?” and most likely the answer will be “Everywhere!”Īrtists and quilters find inspiration in bricks, walls, carpet and plants. Either way, that limitation wouldn't be a good thing at all. I doubt many farmers are using oxen these days! So, without an ox they save on the time and effort spent cleaning the barn, but they also limit their harvest, limiting either the food they produce for their own family or how much they could sell. Well, it would have been in Bible times, anyway. On the flip side, though, without an ox to pull the farming equipment, the land they could farm would be severely limited. Obviously, if a farmer didn't have any oxen in the stable, they'd save a lot of time and effort keeping it clean! I'm thinking there would be a lot of time spent removing manure, which doesn't sound like it would be much fun. I don't even remember ever visiting a stable that housed oxen, but I can imagine such a stable is not an easy place to keep clean. I smiled recently when I read "Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest" (Proverbs 14:4). It's full of little wise snippets about living well, so it's a practical book, plus most of the proverbs are easily understood, so it's not at all a hard book to read. Being aware of our own attitude could do wonders for our enjoyment of our work, as a general principle. If I'm focused on what I'd rather be doing, there's not much joy in my day at all. Usually, whether or not I enjoy the day has less to do with the kids and more to do with my attitude. On the days I do enjoy my time with the kids, though, the day goes by faster and there's just a lot more joy. Not to mention it's work and I'd rather be doing something fun like quilting or reading. It can be monotonous, for sure, and it can be irritating. I have to confess that I don't always enjoy my work. Instead, Solomon says that it is people who enjoy their work and accept their lot in life who are too busy enjoying life for anything else to get in the way. After all, we all know there isn't a person alive who has no troubles their entire life. It's not even that they don't have any troubles. So what is it that Solomon says gives people this kind of life? It's not that they have everything money can buy or that they never have to work a day in their lives. I love that last sentence! "God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past." That's the kind of person I want to be! I want to be so busy enjoying the life I have that I don't have time to brood, or focus negatively, on anything. God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past" (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20). To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life-this is indeed a gift from God. And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. It is good for people to eat, drink, and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them, and to accept their lot in life. "Even so, I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. But then suddenly at the end of chapter 5, he takes a different view. Solomon writes a lot about everything being meaningless, "like chasing the wind" he says in chapter 1, verse 14. ![]() I am currently reading a chapter of Ecclesiastes each morning. ![]() I'll still be sharing quilt posts over the summer, but it's nice to take some time and just let my Bible reading thoughts steep for a while rather than needing a new devotion every week □ I may sometimes re-post an old devotion, but I haven't decided for sure if I'll be doing that. Before I go into today's devotion, I want to let you know that this will be my last new devotion until September as it has become my tradition to take the summer off from devotion writing.
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