Collecting

Back when I was in college fair isle sweaters were all the thing...you know the ones with the intricately knitted yokes? I loved those things. Can one lust after a sweater? If so, I lusted after those sweaters! I studied the ones I saw the other girls wearing. I wanted one. But I have a fatal flaw...I am a clothing snob. Not just any sweater would do. It had to be the right kind, from the right store.

The Village Corner. It was the kind of store that really doesn't exist anymore, at least not in the kinds of towns where I live. The kind of place where one buys silk embroidered bed jackets or thick wool skirts..or fair isle sweaters imported from Ireland. The sweaters were along the side of the store on deep wooden shelves. Each one folded into a precise rectangle and placed with the others so that the colors made a subtly impressive display. Brights and pastels, heathers and earth tones, I let my fingers run down the row and settled on a kelly green. I pulled the soft sweater from the shelf and held it up to me. At fifty dollars each I could only look, but Christmas was coming.
"If I could have just one of these sweaters," I thought, "I would be utterly content."

And on Christmas morning, all my hinting and cajoling paid off. Inside the distinctive back and white striped box was that very green sweater. And it was layered with just the right turtleneck, the kind you could only get at the Ski Chalet. I picked it up and held it to myself..it was just as soft and bright as I remembered, and the perfect thing to wear with my Calvin Klein jeans. As I gently nestled it back into the crisp tissue paper I thought,
"Now, if I could just have one of these in every color I would be utterly content."

~

Colossians 3:5

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly
nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and

greed, which is idolatry.