Sunday Thinking

The haunting melody of “You were on the Cross” caught my attention while reflecting on my writing being crap. Realizing that doing that thing we, as humans, as quilters, do when we’re berating ourselves just one more time I stopped. Tuned into the lyrics, tuned into my love, and gratitude for God.

Lyrics:

Lost, everything is lost
And everything I’ve loved before is gone
Alone like the coming of the frost
And a cold winter’s chill in my stony heart

And where were You when all that I’ve hoped for?
Where You when all that I’ve dreamed
Came crashing down in shambles around me?
You were on the cross

Pain, could you take away the pain?
If I find someone to blame, would it make my life seem easier?
Alone, all my friends are asleep
And I can’t find anyone to stay awake with me

Where were You when sin stole my innocence?
Where were You when I was ashamed?
Hiding in a life I wish I never made

You were on the cross, my God, my God, alone, alone
You were on the cross, You died for us, alone, alone
You were on the cross, victorious, alone, alone

You were there in all of my suffering
And You were there in doubt and in fear
I’m waiting on the dawn to reappear – Matt Maher

The writing I’ve done for the book proposal gets across the core of part of the chapter. It’s not crap per se, it needs editing. There’s a strong difference between crap writing, and needing editing. I can work with needing editing as it leads to an openness to learning and growing. Realizing that, for me, I need a little bit of time between the writing, and editing is a good thing. And in this case having someone work with me on editing will, in a different way, teach me better writing different skills. That’s always a good thing.

This picture is awful. The lighting is bad, the image is out of focus, making it difficult to see the beauty of the quilting. (I just tried taking another photo in different light…it’s not reading well, the color is off, I need my real camera or to shoot it outside.) While what I’m doing is important (to me) what’s happening is ideas flowing from the work, and this time I’m listening well enough to write them down. I have several more pieces of this fabric that will have color wheels stitched into them.

Ideas flow from the work, deep inside I’m thinking, “hey you there, it’s time for your own show quilt” right, the timing could not be better. This is hilarious. That’s what happens though. Here we are minding our own business when we get that “call” to do the thing we’re meant to do. My internal response is along the lines of “yeah right” but I know deep down there is a truth in the middle of it. And I can see part of it one hundred and ten inches long by forty inches high, full of color, whimsy and it’s going to get me into trouble, I can see it now. Dang it. And it’s screaming “cover quilt!” But hey dual purpose, right? Now at least I have a foundation to start. I’d better get stitching. Like yesterday.

This is a significant spiritual/faith and quilting/idea shift in thinking, and in being. By stopping the thinking, by tuning into faith, by really starting to quilt again oh “maybe you’re thirsty” gives way to the thirst being quenched, slowly, over time. This once parched soul remembers vividly the dryness, the lack of ideas and is cherishing both the spiritual water, and the quilterly ideas. I’m hearing, seeing, feeling how God lived with me, compassionately in those moments.

Quilters sometimes this stuff happens our faith becomes obscured temporarily, or even for a long time. The ideas stop flowing from our brains to our finger tips. Things that once inspired us no longer hold that light up for us. There is no simple fix, or solution. Moving through it, claiming the experience, going ahead and living it getting stuck in is the only way out. For me it brought me to a place of listening, of openness, of readiness. There’s something niggling at the back of my brain, that I can’t quite grasp, there’s something more.

Sometimes, too, our quilting work becomes obscured, seemingly directionless. Often this precipitates a change in direction. Change in direction or not getting lost in quilting, again, is a joyous experience.  May you find a joyful direction this week.

Praised be Jesus Christ,

Teri