Best Laid Plans

For those of you lamenting the recent lack of knitting photos, there will be some tomorrow. I promise. The shawl is coming along nicely, but still looks much the same and has demanded politely requested most of my knitting attention in the past week. I will also have a little kitty art to show you.

But today? Today is for unsolicited advice. (I can hear the sound of clicking mouses all over the blogosphere as you move on to the next bookmark...)

Baby Boy came downstairs about an hour ago and asked me, "What are your plans for today?" I answered with one word, "Work." A scintillating answer, no?

And I wonder why he seems so disinterested in what I am doing.

I briefly considered a more flippant answer, "I thought I'd start with bringing order out of chaos and then, with the rest of the afternoon, tackle world peace." Funny, no?

Actually, no.

It's not.

How do you save the world?

One person at a time.

And that much is clearly doable as I plan my day.

Everyday we get up and, before our feet even hit the floor, we are faced with two choices: We can make the world a better place for our being there, or we can make it worse. And what we choose makes all the difference.

When I worked for the Indianapolis Arts Chorale, one of my tasks was to pick up the mail at the post office. There was usually a man outside the door, selling brooms. I walked by that man at least four times a week. I was not in the market for a new broom, so I paid him little attention.

Then one day, I paused, smiled, and said, "Hello." I still didn't need a broom, but my subconscious evidently decided that the individual was more important to me than his usefulness or lack thereof.

My friend and co-author Greg informed me later that, "Today, you saw Christ." Say what?

"All I did was say hello. It's not like he was a tax collector or a prostitute or something."

That missed the point. It wasn't his station in life that was important. Quakers believe that there is that of God held within every person. Not just the pretty ones. Not just the powerful ones. Not just the rich ones. Not just the kind ones.

Everyone. Even the person you like least.

I think what Greg meant by his statement was that I saw that piece of God in a disabled and rather dirty veteran and made a small connection.

The next time I went to the post office, he said, "Hello." And smiled at me.

And just like that, I changed the world, making it a little more peaceful, bringing two strangers closer together.

If we began our sweaters by reading the entire pattern over and over until we had committed it to memory, starting any project would seem a massive and daunting task. But we don't begin with the whole; we begin with the singular: one stitch, then another, and another after that.

And slowly, patiently, the piece takes shape.

How do we knit?

One stitch at a time.

How do we change the world?

One person at a time, my friends. One person at a time...

So, what are your plans for today?