I have these spoons

My friend Margery was a Christian artist, working mainly in stained glass.  She also designed and made beautiful banners for churches, for which she used her own lettering alphabet that she had designed herself. She was a teacher too - of art - for many years.

Margery was a person of deep faith.  Her whole life was founded on prayer and lived in the flow and current of the movement of the Holy Spirit.  I loved her very much, and she was a dear friend.  She died about seven years ago, in her mid 80s.

I have various things that belonged to her.  It is not my practice to hold on to possessions, even when they have special associations, otherwise before I know it the possessions start holding onto me, and you get the Sorcerer's Apprentice effect going on.  I don't like my life and options to be dictated by the proliferation and requirements of inanimate objects!  "Problems arise where things accumulate" (Toinette Lippe).

I have two stained glass panels that Margery made.  They are really beautiful works of art.  I have not yet found the right home for them, because they are spiritual work not worldly, and they are wonderfully wrought, not shoddy work.  For now I keep them with me, and one day I will find the right place for them.  I don't hang then in my own windows because I have such a hunger for light that I want all the light all the time from all the windows.  But they are beautiful.  I had a nude that she painted - which she stipulated must never be hung in a living room where men might see it, it must always be hung in a bedroom.  It is such a graceful, lovely picture.  That has gone to my friend Rosanna.  I have a portrait of a dignified old lady that Margery painted.  That fits in any room really well, so it hangs in our living room over the fireplace.

Then I also have these spoons.  Margery used them for measuring out glazes and powder paints when she was teaching art.  They are old and battered (which I personally feels adds to their delightfulness), because they are very vintage!  Now, I don't really measure anything.  My cooking is of the 'some of this, some of that' school, and  I just heave in a bit from a jar, no spoon comes ito it.

I am clearing out things at home at the present time, going through streamlining and sorting and house-calming.  We have several large bags to go to the charity shop, but I don't want to send these spoons to a charity shop, because they would be thought worthless as they are old and battered.  But they aren't worthless, they would be really excellent for anyone who needs to measure out powders or drizzle liquids carefully.  And they belonged to Margery, so for decades they were the tools of hands dedicated to prayer and praise and healing ministry.

What I want to know is, would one of you like these spoons?

If so, check the comments section to make sure no-one else has already put up their hand for them, and I wll send them to you.  You are safe to send me your address in a comment, because it will come to me by email for moderation.  I will not publish it with your address it, I will publish a comment saying 'The spoons have been claimed by Sister (or Brother!) X', instead, and send the spoons off to you.

If you have them, please treasure them.  Margery and I spent countless hours together, talking about life and the things of God, praying and laughing and drinking Lapsang Souchong tea.  She was a woman of pure heart, a soul of real integrity; and, though her income was tiny, her wants were so few that she always had money to put by so that she could respond to the nudgings of the Lord Jesus and help people who were in need.  She liked to give to people and situations that didn't come under the wing of any charity or welfare benefit.  She used to send money to a black African pastor who lived in a South African township in the days before apartheid ended, to keep him and his family going and his work for God as well.  She used to listen quietly and notice when young couples were struggling and hadn't enough for rent and food or special projects, and she'd help them.  Every time she gave, she asked God a) whether to give and b) how much.  Margery believed that money is a very potent force that can do as much harm as good, and that it must be used strictly under God's direction to bring blessing.  Out of God's direction it becomes a curse.

Here is a picture of the spoons so you can see their form and size.  You will see they are very ordinary and shabby looking - wabi-sabi spoons!  Their specialness is that they carry with them women chatting and prayig quietly in the afternoon sunlight, drinking tea together, and art students learning under the tutelage of a person of pure soul and unusual grace.  They bring with them a murmur of something beautiful, a memory of friendship.

It may be that nobody here wants them at all!  If that's the case, I shan't mind.  I'll just keep them until the right person comes along.