Just about every parent has heard of the terrible twos. It’s that period of life when a child is two. Supposedly they become terrible. Acting out, rebellious … suddenly aware of their own power and self-dom, they wield it with aplomb, spouting, “No.” or “I don’t wanna.” at any turn. It is an important era in the development of their character and personhood, that they begin to understand the limits of themselves and others. And it seems to begin at two, with a rather sudden onslaught of apparent disobedience and rebellion. I never experienced this with my children. Maybe it was because I understood what two was all about, but the twos seemed to go well for me. Three on the other hand … the threes were terrible. And yet, also not really. Neither of my children were horrible toddlers. Inquistive? Yes. Self-motivated? Yes. But the threes were more difficult than the twos.
So I’m not sure what to think now that my blog is three. We turned three the other day. July 7. I realized it a day late and now I’m blogging about it even later. I’m ambivalent about my blogiversary these days. I began this blog as an exercise in community to which I no longer belong and from which I was rudely dismissed when I began to point to inconsistencies in leadership. Then I became the problem. I continue to grieve that gaping hole in my life and struggle with the accompanying anger, stress and mistrust on a daily basis.
On the other hand, I have found a new community of friends to whom I owe a great debt for the love, grace and patience they have granted me as I’ve walked this road. Alone, yet accompanied virtually by a host of companions. They go with me on this road, some before, some behind. All calling out to one another that yes, we can walk this way, we can. It’s a careful community. Our skin is in various stages of healing from the burn so we are tender and raw. Perhaps not yet ready for IRL community. Or only ready for it in small doses with carefully selected friends.
So this blog has been an incredible exercise in community. 2462 comments. 827 posts (more or less). I blog at least once a week, most weeks several times a week. Most posts are commented on. Sometimes I get a good idea. We’ll see if the threes are better than or more difficult than the twos 😉 …
One of the places I follow along loosely is Porpoise Diving Life. The editor is Bill Dahl. He’s a very interesting guy with a neat purpose for the site. But he needed to take this year off and do some writing, reading and growing. So he asked around for some help to keep things going. I think it’s been a great success. Each month a different person has stepped forward to take the helm and organize the content. The result has been startling, refreshing and riveting. Like the difference between cold clear mountain spring water and fizzy sassy mineral water. Both taste wonderful and slake your thirst, but they have a remarkably different feel in your mouth.
Patrick Oden (of Dual Ravens) and I decided that we’d handle the wheel for month of August. Patrick is also the author of It’s A Dance, a wonderful conversation about perichoresis … the dance of relationship between the Trinity and us. I fell in love with the book. Then I read The Shack and we had visions of doing something that would cross-pollinate the two books. But that never took off. So we’re focusing, instead, on the differences between perichoresis and hierarchy. And best of all … we need you. Yep. You. You with the great ideas, poems, photos, stories, articles, etc.
You see it’s like this:
The Trinity is hard to understand. It’s far too complex to have been made up, and no where do we have it explained to us with any kind of absolute understanding. We’re faced with the fact there’s one God, and yet there is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They’re all different. But there’s only one God. Unity and Diversity. Three in One. How does this work? Well, there have been a lot of suggestions over the centuries. The latest prevailing attitude has been to see the Trinity as a hierarchy. The Father, then the Son, then the Spirit. But that’s not quite right, because there’s a lot of discussion in Scripture that doesn’t make it all that neat. The Father gives all his authority to the Son, who sends the Spirit, who had already sent the Son. It’s unusual.
Add to this the fact it’s not the kind of relationship we’re used to dealing with in organizations. They love each other. It’s the love and the relationship that is the bond. God is love. There’s no intimidation or manipulation or ambition or dissension. There’s just relationship. And this kind of relationship has been given a name. Perichoresis. Basically this is a big word to say something not that hard to understand, but almost impossible to live. Instead of being a hierarchy, the persons in the Trinity are continually circling around each other, interwoven, interdependent, interpenetrating. Or to put it more simply… the relationship is kinda like a dance.
When the idea of hierarchy really was getting attention it was thought that churches should be modeled on this. So, churches became about authority. From Father to Jesus to Apostles to Pope to Bishops to Priests to the People. Some churches are still like this either explicitly or implicitly.
Notice who is left out. The Holy Spirit. Paul tells us the Holy Spirit works in all of us, and makes a very interesting metaphor. We’re not a hierarchy. We’re a body. Yes, Jesus is the head. But we, the Church, are to be a body. Gathered together in unity, expressing the diversity of the Spirit who works through all of us in different ways. We too are a unity and diversity. However, we still aren’t comfortable with that. The Trinity doesn’t have sin or ambition. We do. In our gathered communities we still tend to manipulate or seek authority or otherwise intimidate others and try to prove we’re somehow better. This seems worth considering. Not leadership or organization topics. Rather ‘dance’ versus ‘power and manipulation’. Perichoresis versus hierarchy and power. This isn’t only something for those high in the hierarchy to consider. We all face this. We all use the tools at our disposal to gain an advantage, stand out, and sometimes push others down and aside.
When we use the tools at our disposal to engage in power and manipulation to subdue others in our presence … by whatever means, we are negating the power of the Gospel in the very space that the Gospel is to be transcendent. So … how should we dress, act, engage? Well … that’s up to you and your particular dance with the Holy Spirit. See, none of us is the same. The rules are all the same, yet they’re all different. All we can do is ask questions of each other … where do you live? How do your neighbors dress? What is your context? What are the local standards? What is welcoming amongst them? How do you create a welcoming environment in your space, where you are free to proclaim the Good News to people so they will hear it from you?”
Please consider writing, musing, considering music, church liturgy, and other forms of God’s call in our lives that has been distorted by grabbing power rather than dancing with the Trinity. We’d love to have articles, poems, stories, videos, paintings, photos, … anything that you create that speaks about the Dance.
If you feel that that tug on your sleeve calling you to join us, please let me know in the comments and I’ll get in contact with you with more details about the whole process.
So … here it is. Today’s the day. The day of the big synchroblog. The big hitters are writing about this. Fifty of us are writing to define the word “missional.” When Rick sent out his call for this by blog and by e-mail (thank you, Rick), I thought, “Yeah … I do have something to say.” In the intervening weeks though, my scattered thoughts have not gathered themselves.
I am no theologian. I am not trained in exegesis or any of the other long scary unknowable words that people use to make themselves seem smart. I am, at the end of the day, a teacher. And a quilter (I love color) And a story-teller. So I will tell a story and teach a lesson about how I and my family are missional in the suburbs. In our house missional means lawncare … among other things.
It all began with a door to nowhere. Or more precisely, a door to our backyard with a 5 foot drop for a first step. We lived in our house for 3 years with a french door that we could not use because, well, “Watch out for the first step, it’s a lou-lou.” So we had a deck built.
Two guys built it. I think they spoke about 10 words of English between the two of them. Just enough to ask for the bathroom and water when they needed it. We’d go out and admire their workmanship occasionally; they’d smile and nod.
During this time I was caring for a friend’s four children once a week while she and her husband went to marriage counseling. It was the tradition for she and her kids to have dinner with us when the counseling was done. One evening, it happened that the deck makers were also there. We invited them to have dinner with us in the back yard. We’d have eaten in the house, but we had no way to get the grilled meat into the house because of the construction. We set up a plastic banquet table and paper plates. BlazingEwe and her FlamingLambs were here too. The kids ate all over the yard and the grown ups ate together at the table. I remembered about as much Spanish from highschool as they knew English. So we were able to communicate over sticky drumsticks and gooey potato salad. We all ate and smiled until our stomachs and faces were full. It was one of the happiest meals I remember.
We’ve carried on the tradition since then. Whenever people come to work on or around our home, we bring them water or share a meal with them depending on the circumstances. This year, we’ve finally broken down and hired a lawncare service. This has turned out to be a Hispanic man and his sons. We don’t do lawn care with any regularity and our lawn has always been the po’white trash lawn on the block … a certain disgrace to a particular neighbor of ours. It is the elder son who does the talking and negotiating with us. He must be about LightGirl’s age, but sober and sturdy. Responsible, quick and dependable. They come whenever to mow our lawn, if we’re here we pay them, otherwise, they come another time for payment. If we’re here, we take them water. One evening the father was taking a little too long with his part and the sons played joyfully on our trampoline. LightBoy joined them. And the joy was exponential. Our lawn has become beautiful in their capable hands, but more importantly we are slowly building a friendship with them. Our goal is to invite them to a meal soon. To share our hospitality with them.
You see, to me, missional is about giving hope in a world of gray. It’s about smiling at people who routinely wear frowns. I may never have the chance to speak the words of the Gospel to them in my outloud voice. But I can say to my (agnostic) friend when her sense of being gets too tied up in her website, “You are more than that. You are not your website. You are beautiful and created for much more than that.” Help her move beyond despair and into grace.
Missional is about loving my neighbor and that can be expressed in thousands of ways, but the thought that came into my head this morning and will not leave is the verse from Jeremiah that most people use in very different circumstances. Jeremiah 29:11 … “1 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Plans to give hope and a future. You see that’s so often lacking in our world today. Hope … AND a future.
So I speak hope into the lives of the people I know and the people I meet. I try to know them and find the hope that is there. Find the light that leads to the future and together we will walk towards God.
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This is part of a synchroblog that has been organized by Blind Beggar (Rick Meigs) that is hoping to clarify and define the term “missional.” I have more than likely just muddied the waters with my craziness here. But these other folks will have done a much better job than I, so please read them:
Alan Hirsch Alan Knox Andrew Jones Barb Peters Bill Kinnon Brad Brisco Brad Grinnen Brad Sargent Brother Maynard Bryan Riley Chad Brooks Chris Wignall Cobus Van Wyngaard Dave DeVries David Best David Fitch David Wierzbicki DoSi Doug Jones Duncan McFadzean Erika Haub Grace Jamie Arpin-Ricci Jeff McQuilkin John Smulo Jonathan Brink JR Rozko Kathy Escobar Kent Leslie Len Hjalmarson Makeesha Fisher Malcolm Lanham Mark Berry Mark Petersen Mark Priddy Michael Crane Michael Stewart Nick Loyd Patrick Oden Peggy Brown Phil Wyman Richard Pool Rick Meigs Rob Robinson Ron Cole Scott Marshall Stephen Shields Steve Hayes Tim Thompson Thom Turner
It’s the latest fashion craze …
With the price of gas, now it’s financially wise …
And after years of eschewing the environment Christians are now flocking to the so-called green movement in droves.
Can I say this in my outloud voice? I’m just a little bit cynical.
No, make that a lot cynical. Cynical to the point of illness. You see, I’ve been an environmentalist literally all my life. I could just say, “I grew up in Vermont,” and most of you would understand. But it was more than that. I grew up understanding the devastating effects of pollution. I’ve been cutting the plastic rings that encircle beer/soda cans since they came out … to protect water birds. I cleaned road sides as a child and now as an adult I look at the trash on our roads and remember the animals who live in what has become a toilet.
We are a wasteful society and trash culture. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, our culture of efficiency and productivity on one side of the coin, has created waste, trash and selfishness on the other side. We cannot have low prices without using people and resources in ways that are abusive in the end.
We have had the technology for smarter cars and using less gas for thirty years. Yet for the last ten years we have driven larger, and larger cars. Look in any church parking lot, what do you see? SUVs and minivans … an armada of them.
Look inside any church, what do you see? An ocean of cheap plastic clothing. Polyester, nylon … both derivatives of petroleum. Made cheaply and at the expense of someone’s life in another country. But here in the US? We have been “good stewards” of our individual budgets. Each family member has far too many clothes bought cheaply at the local deep-discount store.
I read on the wall of a Mennonite grocery store, “The cost of something is that amount of life which must be exchanged for it.”
Too often we have looked at our individual budgets, incomes and outgos and thought we were being “good stewards” of our money. But have we been good stewards of our lives and of the lives of others? Have we measured the cost of things in terms of the life that has been expended on it? We look at cost in terms of dollars. What if we began looking in terms of life exchanged?
What is that call on our lives? Then perhaps, Christians truly would be little green men.
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There is small handful of us posting a SynchroBlog on Green Spirituality. The posts may not be up and running until Thursday afternoon:
Is it All About the Green? by Phil Wyman Rediscovering Humanity’s Primal Commission by Adam Gonnerman Turn or Burn? A New Liberal Hell? by Cobus van Wyngaard Little Green Men by Sonja Andrews Bashing SUV’s for Jesus by David Fisher Saints and Animals by Steve Hayes When Christians Weasel Out of Their Environmental Responsibilities by K.W. Leslie Green Christian Manifesto by Matt Stone God So Loved, by Sally Coleman
Happy Father’s Day.
It’s one that will surely survive in our collective memory as a family.
It began early; as in 5:30 a.m. One last early rink time for the season. We all went. LightBoy’s game was on one sheet at 7:20; LightGirl’s on the other at 7:30. I ran through the golden arches for a delicious, nutritious breakfast. Yum. LightBoy lost. LightGirl tied. But none of that is memorable.
LightGirl has had a crush on a teammate for a while now. About a week ago she got some intel which suggested that he was more LightBoy’s age. This was completely embarassing. Humiliating. Horrifying. In her words, she felt like a pedophile. Ewweth. This morning before the game I discovered she had bad intel. Her crush was her age. I passed this information along after the game.
So what do you think she did? Well, what would you do? Given that you definitely wouldn’t be seeing the guy again til September and maybe not very much even then.
Has she ever been on a date? No.
Has she ever had a boyfriend? No.
Has she ever been in any kind of relationship of any sort other than friends with a boy? No.
Has she ever spoken more than say fifteen words in a row to this kid? Uhhh … no.
So, of course, it goes without saying … ask him out. Ask him, where? Just … you know … out. On a date. Sometimes the mom is stoo-pid.
It’s helpful too, to have a friend by your side who will act as your voice when you and the guy stand there staring at each other. So, her friend did the actual, you know, asking. She said, “So … LightGirl wants to know if you’d go to the movies or something?” He said, “Sure.” and they both stood there and looked at each other … stunned. So GirlFriend spoke up again and said, “Now it would be good if you exchanged phone numbers.” So they did that too.
Then she came flying around the corner to tell me all about it. Grinning from ear to ear.
She spent the next half an hour texting him. Now she is firmly, giddily ensconced on the phone and computer with her peeps giggling and reliving the event. Imagining what will come next. And ad finitum. It is quintessential adolescence.
And just like that LightHusband and I have crossed a rubicon. It came upon us and we were across it before we even realized that it was there. I never even heard the echo of my feet on wood as the footsteps bounced back from water.
We are lucky, I suppose. She’s very confident. The young man in question is kind, upright, and a decent hockey player. We now have decisions of heavy consequence to make. Where should they go? What should they do? Now that the question has been asked and answered, will the “date” actually even take place?
On another hand, our fortunes run much deeper than that. Our definition of what is quintessentially adolescent is light and air. It involves words like, “giddy” and “peeps.” She will (Lord willin’ an’ the creek don’t rise) complete her secondary education and go on to get a college level education of some sort. There are many, many parents in the 2/3’s world who never even begin to think these words, never mind associate them with children in their family. Yet most families in our world … our 1/3 world, that is the industrialized, civilized, mechanized, and importantly educated, world do have the opportunity to associate words like, “giddy” and “adolescence” and “grin” and “date” and “secondary education” and “college education” with our daughters. Not only do we have that opportunity, we make the assumption that it is the right and natural course of things.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs being secure in our bodily needs allows us to become more secure with our friendships, family and relational intimacy. This in turn builds self-esteem, confidence, etc. It makes sense in a way. One cannot build relational intimacy, when one is deeply hungry for days and months on end. Or living in a place where the water is not reliable. It is simply not feasible. So most Westerner’s (we of the 1/3’s world) would tend to think of education as necessary yet expendable. After all, an education will not build security. It will not fill stomachs or healthily hydrate starving bodies. It will not keep peace among warring neighbors.
Or … will it?
What we are coming to find now is that the key to world peace might just be …
… our daughters. Our collective daughters. The brown ones, and tan ones and yellow ones and pink ones. It’s not that they need to rule the world. Far from it. They just need an education. It is having an education that gives them self-esteem and self-esteem begets relational intimacy which then allows for safety and security and then they can help their families fill their stomachs and hydrate their bodies. It seems that Maslow works for us, but it may just be upside down in other parts of the world.
Give these girls some time … time to be giddy and grow up. Time to learn. Time to be girls, then time to be women. Time to read. Time to calculate. Time to have a date or maybe two. Time to giggle. Time to achieve. Time to gain confidence in their righteous state as children of the Creator. Time to earn respect. Time to bestow respect. They need our time, so that they may have a little more time. And in so doing it is our collective daughters who may just change the world … one village at a time.
Today marked a milestone of sorts.
One day about 14 years ago I signed up to take a meal to a woman who’d just had some sort of surgery. She had two small children and her husband worked alot of hours. The family were members of our church and it was the beneficent thing to do. The children were about 4 and 1 (at the time) and LightGirl was around 6 months old. I figured I’d drop the meal off, say a few words and leave. It was around LightGirl’s naptime afterall. I think I left about 3 hours later.
The way I figure it I think we’ve spent the equivalent of a year of our lives on the phone together. Most of that laughing. I spent the wee hours of the morning with her oldest two when child number three joined them, and then child four and then finally, child number five (who is now five).
Child number 2 and number 3 are LightGirl and LightBoy’s ages … they have grown up together.
The oldest, a girl, graduated from highschool yesterday. A milestone of sorts. My first friend to have a child graduating from highschool. More than that though … I’ve known this girl virtually her whole life. I remember more about the funny things these children said when they were little, than my blood nieces and nephews. We hid out together during tornado watches and cooked chicken feet one day. We’ve watched each other’s children for overnights and for vacations.
We fell away from each other for a few years for no particular reason. We staying in sporadic contact, but falling off of a cliff in the middle of the mines of Moria made me a little difficult to reach for a while. So when we received the invitation to her graduation party, our whole family was delighted. Even better was LaughingEye’s reaction when she opened the door this afternoon. Her whole body radiated joy.
I made her an album quilt … a quilt with space for her friends and family to sign. She was thrilled. I am thrilled. And I sat, absorbed back into my friend’s family and realized that friends really are the family you choose.
I’ve been tagged again in a couple of meme’s and very lax about responding. These meme’s, however, have taken some thoughtful response, so I’m giving myself that out.
First, Grace tagged me to tell you all about my favorite book of the Bible. That’s hard … I think I have to say, Ruth. I love the story of Ruth. If you read it thoroughly it is a complete story of God … He’s all in there, but you have to look in all the nooks and crannies for Him. That’s why I love the story so much, it’s a beautiful love story and it’s multi-layered; keep pushing through and you find more and more and more. After that, I’d say Romans. And Esther.
Who to tag? Pistol Pete, Nick Gray, Maria
Second, Erika tagged me in a meme begun by Jamie Arpin-Ricci in which he quotes:
“The life of the Christian should be burning with such a light of holiness that by their very example and conduct, their life will be a rebuke to the wicked.” (St. Francis) In an era where Christians are largely known for the sin they oppose, this wisdom could not be more timely. Francis calls us to face the compromises of our culture by becoming living alternatives with how we live.
“The life of the Christian should be burning with such a light of holiness that by their very example and conduct, their life will be a rebuke to the wicked.” (St. Francis)
In an era where Christians are largely known for the sin they oppose, this wisdom could not be more timely. Francis calls us to face the compromises of our culture by becoming living alternatives with how we live.
Jamie set up the following rules (I think of them as more like guidelines 😉 )
1. Consider aspects of our culture where we have too easily compromised, issues that you passionately oppose. 2. Then, ask yourself what it would mean for you, both as and individual and as a part of a community, to be a living alternative. Write about it. 3. Link back here to this post. 4. Tag others to participate.
1. Consider aspects of our culture where we have too easily compromised, issues that you passionately oppose.
2. Then, ask yourself what it would mean for you, both as and individual and as a part of a community, to be a living alternative. Write about it.
3. Link back here to this post.
4. Tag others to participate.
It’s too easy to be morally upright about the things that matter least in God’s economy … things like sex and alcohol. Yet it seems as though those are the things that Christians are known for caring most about. We don’t seem to spend a lot of time worrying about the seven deadly sins from the classical era … pride, greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy and lust. Some may say (and correctly) that these are not mentioned by name in the Bible. True. And yet … we must look at the results of these sins. They serve to devour others and their needs, rights, desires in the service of mine. They build up me at the expense of another. This is counter to the love of God and love of other that is woven like a golden thread throughout all of the Scriptures.
To be a living alternative is to understand root causes and behaviors. It is to live in the meniscus of grace, dancing with the Holy Spirit where She may take me. Living with open hands. I have a house for purposes of hospitality. I have stuff for the purposes of giving it away to those in need. I am home during the day so my young neighbor can get a ride to school when he’s missed his bus. I can give water to those who are thirsty and share my food with those who are hungry. I can live with my hands and heart open, giving away … and not storing up for myself. Do not live to devour others, but live to serve God and dance in Her Grace.
And I’ll tag: Bill, Jeremy, Peggy, Lyn , and now Doug (who I’d been thinking of all along, but got distracted!)
You know how you’re reading in your reader … just browsing through the blogs, lazily looking at all the juicy writing, sipping your morning coffee (or other beverage of choice) … when all of a sudden you see your name on someone else’s blog and it just blows your mind? Yeah … it doesn’t happen too often to me either. Like maybe twice a year, three times when Bro M is telling jokes.
Well, the other day my fellow Scriber Jeremy Bouma surprised me, but good. He nominated me for a Subversive Blogger award. Thanks Jeremy!
Subversive bloggers are unsatisfied with the status quo, whether in church, politics, economics or any other power-laden institution, and they are searching for (and blogging about) what is new (or a “return to”) – even though it may be labeled as sacrilege, dangerous, or subversive.
Wow … yep, I’m unsatisfied with the status quo of just about all of those things. But like a few of the other bloggers (including Jeremy) nominated, I’ve been a little dry of late, and feeling as though it just doesn’t matter, my words are flying off into space with no effect. They likely are. But perhaps they will one day blossom into plants which will seed. So I shall write on … and there are others who should as well.
So I get to pass on the linky love and nominate subversive bloggers of my own … here are my nominations:
Adventures in Mercy by Molly
Quirky Grace by Jemila
The Virtual Abbess by Peggy
Eternal Echoes by Sally
Ravens by Patrick
The rules of participation are pretty straightforward:
And as Jake says, the award is meant to be encouragement to keep blogging, so I hope this will encourage these five to keep on keepin’ on, because their photo is next to the definition of Subversive Blogger (if there is one somewhere)!
About a month ago, BlisteringSheep and BlazingEwe told us about a radio broadcast they’d listened to and I wanted to listen to it. It had been on NPR, so I knew how to find it. I did, and went through the necessary steps to download the podcast. Then I discovered that I can subscribe to their podcast. WOW! This means that I just open up my iTunes window regularly and, poof!, they download some new stuff. I am now discovering that this is also true at Allelon and other wonderful places as well. I am so far behind the curve that it’s a wonder I don’t still believe the world is flat. I know that is a place where I could find a lot of information and do some multi-tasking is by listening to podcasts.
Here’s my problem though. I don’t have an iPod. I live in a house filled with iPods, but I don’t have one. I used to have one. I loved my iPod. It was the original U2 Special Edition iPod that came out in late 2004. Shiny on the back with the boys autographs engraved on it. Matte black and red on the front. Sleek. Proud. Special. And it came with all of their music. And it was mine. For the first time in my whole life I didn’t have to share my music with anyone else, or cringe when I listened to the same song over and over and over again, or … well … anything really. It was mine. But because I’ve always shared my music, I shared this as well. Shared too well, apparently, because it disappeared. I think it stayed at my CLB2 that last day we were there. That’s the last time I remember having it, I’d used it for music that morning and given it to the sound guys. In the flurry of clean up at the end of the morning, I would often forget those details … but we were always set to return. We’d always see each other again, you know? But then … we didn’t. And likely never will.
I didn’t discover that my black beauty was missing for months. I was too sad, too angry, too hurt to listen to music for a very, very long time after we left. I still don’t listen to music very often. Now I listen to the LightChildren’s music, or LightHusband’s music. On the rare days I want to listen to music, so I find it on the dish … and listen to the radio on our television. But I want to listen to those podcasts while I’m sewing, or sorting, or whatever. So I claimed the one iPod that won’t fit into the car jack this morning. Told the kids, “I need this.” They really didn’t squawk too much. They are very good kids.
Then I sat here with my computer on my lap and the iTouch in my hand and cried.
It’s time to move on, and stop looking back. Stop wondering what might have been. Stop wishing for the love and the community that broke so badly. I understand some of the pieces of what happened. Some of them I will never understand. It’s time to let those go.
I was surprised by the grief that poured out at the thought of finally putting my old iPod to rest. It’s gone. Really gone. For some reason, and in an odd way, it’s come to symbolize putting those friendships and that part of my life to rest for good and all. I’ve known this for some time now, but I’m fumbling with the how.
An old friend stopped by about a month ago for a brief chat. As we caught up with all of our respective goings on, he asked LightHusband and I, “So have you made a lot of new friends with all the hockey parents?” and in my mind I came to a full stop. No one else noticed, of course. But the question washed over me like wave in November, numbing with cold and I froze. The answer that tumbled into a wreck behind my teeth was, “Well, no … I can’t make friends now. I have no earthly idea how to trust anyone. I don’t know when that will ever happen again.” Fortunately, LightHusband had a more socially acceptable answer and conversation continued on without my contribution. But I’ve been sitting with that ever since and watching myself walk around mistrustful, angry, broken, wary … of people. This is/was not my normal functional state. I am not comfortable like this. For 40+ years my automatic assumption was to trust others implicitly and that has been completely shattered.
I want my trust back. I want hope. While I grieve what did not happen and what can never happen in my former community, there is also a sense in which I am grieving the idea that it might never happen. Or that I will never be able to participate in it because I will be too afraid of the pain. I will have lost that sense of fearlessness which is a necessary component for entering into it.
So, I have yet to re-program that iTouch. It’s sitting next to me on the sofa. Shiny and black. It’s speaking to me of the possibilities inside. I also know that there are opportunities available on the web to purchase a replacement for my beloved U2 Special Edition iPod and I’ve found them. But it seems that there are a few paths I need to walk down first. When I’ve done that, then I’ll be ready to have my own iPod again.
So as I may have mentioned in my earlier post, I am somewhat pre-occupied with this quilt lately. It’s taking up all my time and all of BlazingEwe’s time too. We are actually ripping our hair out.
This quilt is composed of 81 separate blocks. There are 49 that measure 12 inches square and the remaining blocks measure 6 inches square. In January and February we handed out kits for these blocks (complete with directions) and all the fabric needed for each block, pre-cut, at our guild meeting. We asked for the blocks to be back by the March guild meeting. Most of them came back. A few more trickled in at our show a week later. We had to chase the rest down.
Finally, about ten days ago, we sat down and triaged the blocks.
Here are some things you need to know about quilting. First … a block that will measure 12 inches square in a quilt, really is 12.5″ square all by itself. You have to figure for seam allowances (a quarter inch for quilters). Second, some quilters are slap-dash quilters and others are OCD quilters (I fall into the latter category, btw) … and yes, OCD stands for the same thing here that it does in ordinary life – obsessive-compulsive disorder. Third, a block sort of indicates that the general shape of the thing should be square, that is, four equal sides with 90 degree angles. That’s what you’re looking for as an end result because it makes the whole thing go together well.
So, as I said, we triaged the blocks. Of 81 blocks, 40 were not within tolerances. That means … they were either not square, or not 12.5″ (or 6.5″) in measurement. Now we know that everyone is different and sews differently so, that means that very few people are going to have exact blocks. Well … I do, but I’m OCD about it. However, in order to make it work, they have to be within about an 1/8″ of an inch on all sides. That’s what I mean by “within tolerances.” Several blocks had curved outer edges. That does not meet the definition of a square to me.
We began making notes on post-its and pinning them to each block. Notes about what needed to be adjusted, changed or perhaps outright redone. Sixteen blocks needed to be recut and redone from the get go. We had to go buy new fabric. In one case this involved a roundtrip of two hours. Don’t ask.
There was ranting and cursing involved.
We have about half of the quilt top together. We put the other half up on our jerry-rigged design wall last night and sighed. We are both tired and tired of this quilt.
Here’s the thing though. We’ve seen the quilts that most of these ladies have made. They are beautiful and wonderful. How is that possible? These blocks were/are a mess! It was a mystery.
Then I realized this … if you make the same block with the same mistake 28 times it doesn’t matter. Those 28 blocks go together just fine. Structurally, they work together well. They fit together and the mistakes and idiosyncrasies disappear into each other. They are not apparent. However, when each and every block has a different mistake and idiosyncrasy they do not fit together well. They bump up against each other and look very ugly indeed. There are gaps where there should be joints. Intersections which do not intersect well. Taken on the whole, a community quilt is a very bumpy, wavy adventure. It makes the OCD quilter (me) somewhat nuts.
One day as I was sewing along I had a revelation. Quilt blocks are like people, or maybe people are like quilt blocks. Structurally we all have mistakes and idiosyncrasies. We don’t notice them at all when we are alone or in our families because they are unique to us and we make them all the time. When we’re making our own blocks and quilts, these mistakes and idiosyncrasies just fit right in to whatever we’re doing at the time. It’s only when we get out into the larger community that our unique bits stand out in contrast to the unique bits of everyone else and the joints don’t fit right. There are gaps and ugly intersections. Places where the fabrics just clash and hurt your eyes (or ears).
When you’re making a quilt, you can take apart the offensive blocks and put them back together so that they fit more better. In real life, there’s not so much you can do with offensive people. So we have to figure out how to make do with what we have instead of remaking it to suit ourselves. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? We each want to remake the other people/blocks to suit us rather than let them be and figure out how to make the community quilt just as it is. Now wouldn’t that be an adventure?
