I keep a lot of quilts, thread, and other stuff I teach with in the back of the car because it’s easy for the times when I get to lecture and teach. I’m in a summer slowdown – unless of course your Parish, guild or shop would like to have me visit – so I’ve brought a whole bunch of stuff into the house and right up to my sewing studio. I put some of the thread to immediate good use.
I’m quilting.
This is much more of a shocker than it might seem at first. It’s been a while since I’ve just quilted for myself, for the sheer joy of watching what happens when. . .
As a quilter balanced tension is a desire, goal and requirement. It took a while to learn to balance tension on my machine, particularly when using different thread weight through the top and in the bobbin. In the photo to the left the tension is balanced though the way the light hits in a couple of spots it looks like it’s not. One thread is a shade of purple the other a shade of red. (Shade is used in the broader sense of a part of a color rather than the finer sense of a color deepening through black,)
Tension, like so many other words, has more than one meaning. There’s the mechanical components of the machine, needle, thread and the movement of our hands. Then there’s the bodily sense of how I hold my person while I’m doing things. And then there is the spiritual sense of holding two things that seem in opposition to one another in a given moment. The already and not yet. It is so beautifully wild.
This morning I woke up earlier than intended with my brain yearning for both sleep and already praying. After trying to go back to sleep my brain said, “okay let’s do this” and I made my way to the dining room table where I spend time intentionally praying. Part of the Sunday ritual is listening to the homilies of Bishop Barron and Fr Mike Schmitz. Below is Bishop Barron’s homily on this Feast of Pentecost, where he brings in Galatians 5:22 where Saint Paul teaches the Fruit of the Spirit. Bishop Barron uses the word “fruits” and while a little annoyance arose in my being as he said this I realized that sometimes a word is used in a way that describes a fullness of being while remaining seemingly singular.
In all my years of practicing the title of Vinculum Amoris – Chain or Bond of LOVE – is not a Title of the Holy Spirit I’d heard. I have to say I’m smitten. All fruit of the Holy Spirit is derivative of LOVE. This fruit is our delightfully human way of experiencing our relationship with God. While at first glance these are seemingly different things, they are ways our fragmented human selves experience the restoration, reintegration of our being. And this Fruit is deeply connected to the Golden Rule, summed up in Love God, Love your Neighbor, Love Yourself – a trinity of relationship.
There is always a time when things seem messy in this relationship with God. Often when things are messy we begin to wonder where God is and this is a good wondering. Our human go-to is to either abandon this relationship or to pursue other avenues of prayer, worship etc. I am beginning to understand that there is a need for steadiness, allowing my heart (soul) come to rest so I am able to listen, see, hear, feel, taste. This is that tension, the already and not yet, the stillness and moving.
Through the last few years I’ve still quilted for the what I need to do of it all. I knew that underneath somewhere is the quilting for joy. In this quilting there is the same, “Oh! Oh! Oh!” experience that I’ve had in the reading, formation and prayer. This Joy is something to hold on to when things feel slightly out or wildly of sorts.
Come Holy Spirit!
This post feels like it’s ending a little weirdly. I’m okay with that.
Teri
A Quilter's Heart 