Quilts

"Knotted with love, the quilts sing on." Teresa Paloma Acosta

One of my favorite topics back when I was speaking to teachers in various genres was quilts and books about quilts. I still have in my file many bibliographies and units that I picked up through those years.

While rummaging in my study closet, I suddenly realized how long some of the quilts hanging there had belonged to me. One red, white and blue one was made by Claranell Murray, one of the teachers at Bowie Elementary during the Bicentennial Celebration. She and her students pieced and quilted a full-sized quilt with their names embroidered on it and gave it to Sam.

One quilt is pieces cut out by my grandmother which Sam had a local woman quilt and then he gave it to me on my birthday--a treasure. It covered our bed for many years.

There are two quilts done by Sam's grandmother which are tattered and soiled, but nevertheless treasured.

Then there is one hanging that is a mystery--it is a piece done by Sam's great-grandmother. Not a quilt, but some sort of bedcover which is "embroidered" large dots on a white background--I do not know the name of the type of art it represents--it is probably over 100 years old.

When one considers that many of the aging quilts in our society are now being cut up for purses, coats, decorative items, etc., I believe a wake-up call is in order.

There is nothing quite like sitting or lying under a family heirloom made by the hands of long-ago relatives and feeling the tiny stitiches that took hours to sew, marveling at the infinite tiny pieces those women took the time to cut out and piece together. These quilts have a smell like no other--odors embedded in the quilt: the fried bacon, smoke from the fireplace, and closet mustiness, the smell of old flour sacks and cloth gathered from dresses and work-clothes, heavy with rough fibers. And all of this covered with a smooth cotton batting which was often flour sack as well.

Just looking at the quilts is like seeing a human art form filled with love and skill. And the quilts, because of the material from which they are taken, often tell stories. One woman remarked, " My whole life is bound up in that quilt." I am sure my grandmother were she still alive, could tell me what the gray striped patch came from as well as the checkered cotton square in the middle of the quilt.

I hope my grandchildren preserve the quilts in my closet and that they appreciate the history and the love that went into them.

Sunshine and Shadows

The Amish invented a new quilt pattern many years ago called "Sunshine and Shadows" in which both light and dark colors are used in juxtaposition--beginning with a light square in the middle of the quilt followed by another row of dark-colored squares around it, then followed by another row of light squares, etc. It is a contrast of light and dark with a stunning visual effect when the quilt is finished. Of course, it is a metaphor for life--good and bad, joy and sorrow, etc. It is also a picture of that wonderful passage in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: ....a time to be born and a time to die....a time to weep and a time to laugh.

I guess I have been in shadows since Brandon announced his resignation at Otter which deepened even further when Sheryl announced the family would not be coming back to Otter to worship, but felt drawn to another church. Selfishly for me that meant:

Brandon will no longer be my worship leader. I will no longer experience his evocative call to prayer and his emotive guidance into the heart of God. I will no longer be able to see the kids dressed in Sunday clothes freshly coming from class with cotton ball sheep and paper-sack mangers. There will be no special celebrations on Easter or Christmas or on the third Sunday of each month when instrumental and vocal musicians got to use their great gifts in bringing us to worship. And for so many other reasons, I have been a blue funk for almost two months, trying to see what God is doing in all this, both with Brandon and Sheryl and with me.

The sunshine is peeping through as I watch Brandon revel in his new job, receive acclamations for
his work and see Sheryl excited to be helping him find new venues for the productions. And to know that they are both meeting new people and letting their lights shine in new corners; and in seeing the darkness of the last year lifted from their faces.

Those shadows in my life are miniscule in comparison to the shadows felt by that small band of Christ-followers in Jerusalem the day after the crucifixion. That Saturday must have been horrible as they saw their whole world come to an end with the death of their Lord. (Had they listened a little better, he did give them hints of the resurrection, but like most of us would have, they went directly into hiding and sorrow).

Fortunately we know and they found out that Saturday is followed by Sunday, shadows followed by sunshine, and death by resurrection. Hallelujah!