Thrifting

We drove across Pennsylvania last week... most of it anyway. The trip east was intense. Our goal was to reach our destination and transact business. No time to do anything but get there.

The drive west was fun. The entertainment? Thrift shops. Not the big chains (although we did stop at a couple that are "doing the most good"), but the little shops that are sponsored by everything from various small town ministries to dog lovers.

The thing I like about thrift stores is that you never know what lies at the back of a shelf, or the bottom of some box. I feel like a hunter intently searching for... for... I don't know! I just know when I see it, it has to go home with me.

Like this lo-o-o-o-ng box full of old wooden dominoes. Not sure yet know how they will live out life, but just maybe they could add some depth or texture to guerrilla art. (All those dominoes for $2!)

Occasionally, we find tidy little shops where everything is clearly priced and labeled. Though they may not know that this "chip" is a sumi ink stick... I recognized it and it lives here now. The finishing touch in that store was a box of slides - regular and title -  for just $.80! 

In all the stops we made, there is one scene that I will never forget. A twenty-something man, standing behind a counter in an unheated, "unlovely" storefront. He kept rubbing his hands together to generate warmth while he cheerfully told every person that came through the doors about the free bread in his food room. That's ministry. 

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. I John 3:18