We all get emails from a variety of sources. When the emails come at least daily, if not more than once there is a moment when if the headline doesn’t catch our attention we tend to ignore it, even if, even when we know the content is good.
Someone asked me recently why, in a series of discussions am I focused on ________ insert particular topic here. Clearly this got me thinking, somewhat passively, on the why. Why is this important to me? Ultimately it comes down to a few things my relationship with God, my relationship with others, and my relationship with myself. In someways this seems an area that might need some healing, or it’s an area wherein I have the opportunity to grow, to develop a deeper understanding. In one sense although I’ve been a practicing Catholic for nearly 29 years I’m wading deeper into one part that made a difference in my understanding and practice of our Faith. It is as though, once again, a gentle rain is falling and the dry, seemingly barren earth of my soul is being watered and drinking deeply. Or perhaps its pouring like a TX rain storm and I’m still drinking deeply. Who knows.
In the reading Scripture, articles, blogs, and listening to homilies there is a continual flipping of an internal script playing over and over both in my head and culturally. Over the years when somethings come into view countermanding this script it’s been easy to dismiss because clearly there is something not right. And yet my mind & heart have held onto a belief that didn’t belong there.
The Feminine Genius in the Early Church: A Conversation with Mike Aquilina (buzzsprout.com)
For all of us in some way we have a distorted view of our own personhood. We don’t believe we are good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, worth of God’s love. These distortions become easy enough to buy into when the voices around us reinforce this in some way. What I do know is that flipping the script is a current theme in my life of Faith and in the quilting. Learn something differently, take a different look at this. So the other day when the email came in with the link to the podcast (above) I listened with interest. One thing I knew but realized a little bit more clearly is that from the earliest days of the Church women have participated fully in the life of the Church, and at times these participation has called our Priests and Bishops to reform their lives, and do the right thing. I realized too in listening to this that Sunday after Sunday and day after day there is so much richness and depth to preach on that it’s difficult to make choices. It’s also our responsibility as Catholics to learn our history and part of this is tuning into the prayers of the Mass, in its entirety because much of our Faith is right there. The Source and Summit is there.
I remember Cardinal O’Connor pointing to the Blessed Sacrament during a Holy Hour for our Ministry saying, “If you want to be at the moment of Jesus’ conception, here you are. If you want to be at the moment of Creations, here you are. If you want to be at the Cross with Jesus, here are.” I can see him standing at the ambo speaking with clarity and conviction. And I am there with him now, Shepherd that he was here on earth still pointing the way to the Reality of all Life. While this moment was in the late 90’s it is still here and now.
With all of this bouncing like super balls in my head sometimes it seems as though I’ve lost the plot. In some ways I have, in others I’m catching on, catching up, and getting into the rhythm of this story. I’ve kept saying over the last few months I’m a late adopter of things and I’m realizing this isn’t exactly true I need to spend time thinking and praying about something for a while. Which is a bit weird because there’s a bit of a flying by the seat of my pants. We each have a life of Faith that is all our own, and in Community with others. What one person gets easily, another struggles with. It is all part of our path to holiness.
Right now there is a path forward in the quilting world. One that feels like a bit of a switchback kind of road that I’m on however it also feels straight this path. I’m taking on a whole bunch of new things, learning to edit video, learning to teach on line, dreaming up new quilts, needing to make them, learning the long arm, and still settling in to this life here in TX. Again this is all part of the path to holiness. A friend reminded me of two things 2020 was an unusual year filled with big personal changes that continue into this year. So it makes sense that I am a little slower to respond and to adopt stuff into this quilting life.
The last time I had a weird moment like this I made Shine Your Light. I’ve been thinking of making a stitched version of Split Complimenterity and that will happen, I have the fabric it needs to be marked and I know when I need it for now I need to set the goal and make it happen.
Join me in new beginnings and in joyous expectation of quilterly newness.
God bless,
Teri
A Quilter's Heart 