I am slowly sipping coffee, waiting the sublime moment when the space between my ears and my body are ready to greet the day with great gusto. One of many great oddities in being the chief creative weirdo is that if I am with a group of friends or other creative types in the morning just prior to and during those first sips, I am irritatingly perky. Shocking I know.
More often than not the title of the blog post comes before the acutal writing, not so today it is the thoughts about what to write as the Forty Days of Prayer for Quilters is one more post to completion. So much has changed in the time since starting this series of reflections: job changes, moves, a pandemic, in and out of creative seasons, in and out of prayer-filled seasons, reading, writing, reflecting, digging in, digging out, making and not making. The other day as I searched for an image to use on another post I saw a quilt I’d had on a longarm to baste for quilting on my home sewing machine a few years ago and realized I can put that sucker on the Moxie and knock it out fairly quickly. This is, in and of itself, a really good thing, one more quilt off the to do pile. YAY. And if I actually bind it I can give it away, even better.
I went down for coffee and ended up tidying up the kitchen before coming back.
In this particular week that I’m writing there’ve been a couple of aha! moments in conversations that are helping define my work going forward. The thing most desired is to say Yes to the Father and be guided by His Love. Part of this being guided and saying Yes is coming into a deeper understanding of who I am in the deepest recesses of my being. Being in a rightly ordered relationship with God allows us in some way to rightly order our relationships with others. This weeks aha moments are both a fuller understanding of a conversation I had years ago about learning styles and the conversations this week, and of writing the book and working on new classes.
As early as kindergarten (that I clearly remember) there are hints that I am a process learner, give me the basic outline and let me go figure out the rest, and ask questions when I’ve thought it through enough to know what I need to ask. It’s a fabulous way to learn however in most current educational models & enviroments its super frustrating. Aha moment number one this week while talking with one of the folks guiding and directing part of a big teaching project I’m working on, this involves recoginzing my own learning and teaching style, and the learning styles of those I teach. While I often teach to the person by shifting how I teach just slightly it will (hopefully) be more broadly appealing. In that same conversation the second idea got a resounding YES and there’s been action taken on this in a really beautiful way. I will tease more about this on TerifiCreations when the time is right.
Our heart is restless until it rests in You. St. Augustine
Part of being creative is doing the work of being creative, for this quilter it is as much about working through ideas & possibilities as it is about quilt making. There is an energy that comes with that, and in some way I do not need to DO or Make the thing from the resulting idea, sometimes working through the details is enough. Being creative isn’t simply about the making of quilts, decorating cakes, making sublime food, baking bread on the regular, part and parcel for human beings includes coming up with the ideas, being willing to make mistake after mistake after mistake, do the icky work, writing bad prose or poetry. Sometimes creativity is being, sitting with your self and allowing the layers of who you believe yourself to be to slough off to make room for who God calls you, creates you to be. God creates each of us in His image and likeness and we are created Good. I had an appointment with one of the shops in my terriroty that included a conversation chock full of ideas to sell product. I’d spent some time getting to know what she had in her store, understanding the depth of her product base and knowing that quilters are often looking for these products. Over a period of about thirty minutes suggestion after suggestion. Yes I wanted her to purchase fabric, more than that it was important that the in-stock product move. I know full well that it’s just as important for her to move product so she can purchase the new.
So the other day I messaged a friend for some help with a product we both use to edit video. She has vastly more experience than me and has offered help and I’m accepting. Just like my learning style the tops and hints are the key bits of info and my friend gives that and let’s me ask questions when I need to. And this dear friends is where the Render title comes from. Rendering video essentially means stitching all the bits together into one cohesive piece. Whew. It also has an alternate meaning of being torn in two as the veil in the temple was rent asunder the moment our Lord died on the Cross, that bit of stuff that kept us from the Holy of Holies no longer exists. We are granted access through the humblest act possible, the Creator of all things is crucified. While the video was stitching together for one of the projects I shared earlier I looked up the word on dictinary dot com and scrolled through to make sure I experienced the word. Fat is rendered. Beeswax is rendered. WE in some ways are rendered. Sometimes this rendering this stiching together and/or transforming happens in the still of our being, sometimes it happens in the heartache, and hurt. Sometimes this rendering happens in the ache of making, the trying to create, the desire to get better and better at a skill and the frustration of “why isn’t this coming together exactly the way I’m seeing this in my head!” moments.
Listening for and to the Holy Spirit
My Sweetie and I try to get to the Church for Mass about 30 minutes early so we can get seats and have some quiettime with the Lord. It’s a longstanding practice, on ethat is so ingrained in us that when we arrive for Mass on-time we feel like we are late. I am in the midst of the longest chpater of a book I’m going to discuss with a cohort of women. This book, and another by this same author have guided me over the last year or so, enlightening the path of my faith journey, opening the eyes of my heart and stirring the God-given intellect in a way that, just like the creative outlets, and teaching elements are in need of renewal. Oh there it is a good word, renewal. Being transformed by the renewing of the mind and heart. The place where God speaks if we are but willing to listen. Starting next week I’ll be sharing written reflections on the chapters of Strange Gods: Unmasking the Idols in Everyday Life by Elizabeth Scalia, and sharing here and with a Catholic group I lead on one of the social media outlets. So hang with me as I work towards this, do the teaching on my schedule, make more video and do the work that God is offering me in this moment.
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful. Kindle in them the fire of your love. Pour forth your spirit and we shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.
Let’s be created.
God bless,
Teri
A Quilter's Heart 