Piecing a Quilt: Preparing for Lent

Last updated on: March 2, 2011 at 11:13 am by Elizabeth Nordquist

Piecing a Quilt: Preparing for Lent 2011-03-02T11:13:11+00:00 Elizabeth Nordquist

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In a few days the season of Lent will begin, a process of preparing for the holy week leading to Easter. It is a process of reflecting on one’s own life, particularly looking at the things that one needs to let go of or get rid of or unload, to clear the way for the new resurrection life that the the Risen Christ brings. However, before I begin that journey, in light of the losses I have encountered in this recent season, I need to pause to remember pieces of my life from the past that make up the varied color and shapes of how I have come to be a person on the journey of Spirit, pieces that need acknowledgement if not embracing. I need to see if in gratitude, I can sort, discard some, savor the rest and put them together, something like a quilt.

I was formed in faith by communities that loved Scripture, memorizing it, singing it, reciting it, studying it. Initially it was almost always the King James Version, but the cadences and precepts are still a default position for my prayers and longings.
I was given a faith that sang. St. Augustine is often quoted as saying, “The one who sings, prays twice.” My tradition didn’t know much about about Augustine, but knew everything about prayers and praise in song. It was a second language, which has developed in me into a spiritual need for the art of music in a multitude of forms–chant. chorus, hymn, spiritual, symphony, motet, cantata, hum. All can center me in the presence of Mystery, lost in wonder. love and praise.
I was entrusted with the knowledge that I could pray and read Scripture for myself, even as a child, a small member of the family and the Church. As helpful and important as leaders are, I am the one who is both responsible for and capable of creating a life with God.
I was provided with models in whom the precepts and the behavior were congruent and the same. There was not much hypocrisy where I started. What one believed was what one did.
I shared in a hospitality, both giving and receiving, of welcoming both those of the family and faith and the stranger. That hospitality always invited a welcome, food, and laughter. It encouraged the telling of stories, and listening to a history of faith lived, with lively characters, both from the Bible, missionary adventures and family reminiscences.

On the discard pile I need to put the outworn:

the terror of what “others” thought, more powerful than any two-edged sword.
the narrow window through which the world was seen, neglecting anything that did not fit in to the mold.
the suspicion of ideas that came from an untrusted source.
the judgments made of the basis of personas and appearances.
the willful shallowness of understanding of Big Concepts, such as Grace, Spirit, and Resurrection.

As I get ready to enter in to the Lenten season, I gather a quilt, the Comforter, around me, in the knowledge and hope that whatever lies ahead in these 40 days comes to my life with my history, with celebration, and with forgiveness, and as is the custom of Amish quilt makers, a space where the Spirit can get in.

“…piecin’a quilt’s like living a life…The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut ‘em out and put ‘em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there’s a heap more in the cuttin’ out and the sewin’ than there is in the caliker,” says Aunt Jane of Kentucky.

I want this journey to be one of “cuttin’ and sewin” so as to make myself available for what the Holy One will bring.

The Rev. Elizabeth Nordquist blogs at A Musing Amma.

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