charity?

claude needs some more clothes.
everything he had was in a small plastic shopping bag.

"claude" is a little boy who has come to the u.s. from africa for a surgery. he is an orphan. he has never been in such a cold place before.

on reading those sentences i wanted to shower him with gifts of warm clothing. i have nothing that's his size.

so i gave claude a scarf.

because i gave it away before i remembered to take a picture, there is no photo of the scarf for posting here. instead, there is a short awkward story.

i remember walking into that LYS for the first time. it was small and very cramped, but of course, i liked it. and there, on the very first display stand, i saw it. it was, um, equinox stripe from nashua yarn, in "storm." it was wound so that on the outside of the skein was a beautiful light blue, striped with grey. very soft. i didn't buy it right away, but i obsessed about that yarn until i did. i purchased two skeins of it on my third visit to the store. i didn't know how much it would cost, and it ended up being rather pricey (for me).

i churned out a ribbed scarf in no time at all. the yarn is super bulky weight, after all. the scarf ended up being a lot darker than i had expected. i didn't know it was a self-striping yarn, and i didn't know how much of it would be charcoal grey or dark blue. only a tiny section in the middle of the scarf showed the light colors i had obsessed about. i decided to make the scarf a giveaway, but because the yarn had been so expensive, i thought, "i'll give this one to a family member instead of donating it to church."

i kept feeling a little bit guilty about that. my materialism continues to disappoint me. do poor people not deserve nice things?

evidently i am not naturally charitable. i am glad that the two sentences in that e-mail prompted me to do the right thing.

claude needs some more clothes.
everything he had was in a small plastic shopping bag.