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Art is very much a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace. Whatever else art may be, it is primarily work of the soul. It is about making beauty from what is at hand. For me, quilting as spiritual discipline is giving shape and color and texture to my inner life. The word worship comes from an old word meaning, "to shape things of worth." One aspect of worship is transformation, transforming the ordinary into the Sacred, the remnant into the Holy. Slowly, I have come to understand that quilting for me is about worship. The quilts of the Amish spoke deeply to me, but quilting then was still an extracurricular activity for me and I didn't have time in seminary life to do what I most needed. I was drawn to religious art of many kinds, but I knew that I was not a Russian Orthodox icon painter, a Shaker furniture maker, or a practitioner of Japanese ikebana (flower arranging). I longed for a hands-on way to pray, to enter into the Mystery. In seminary, I was excited by the ideas and words of several theologians in particular, but I was also drowning in words. And though quilting might be interesting, it was not real art and didn't belong in the department. In college, I remember standing outside the art building having been told by a faculty member that I could not do an independent study in quilting because there was no faculty member who could supervise such a class. It is my path to comfort, clearer understanding, and renewed compassion for the world.Įven as a child, working with fabric was not primarily a way to expand my wardrobe, but a way to explore my mind and spirit. Needle through thread, up and down, is my rosary, my mantra. The old quilting bees remind us of that the women gathered together, sometimes for days at a time, sharing their food, their stories, their families and lives, all the while stitching, stitching.Įventually, quilting became more than a metaphor, but it took me many years to finally name and claim quilting as my spiritual discipline - my prayer and meditation. Each of us has the task of taking the scraps of our lives, the beautiful satins and velvets, the plain everyday calicoes, the bumpy corduroys, the dark shades as well as the bright, and making them into a thing of unique beauty. In the process of finishing that first quilt from my great-grandmother, and the many that have followed, I discovered that quilting can be a powerful metaphor for the spiritual life on both the personal and collective levels. I wanted to use these squares in a new quilt I was making called "Four Generations Handed Down," in which I honored my creative genealogy: four generations of textile artists in my family. Fifteen years later I painstakingly took it apart, stitch by stitch, to salvage a few of the squares that were in better condition. Still, it was precious to me, so I tucked it away in a closet. I used it on my bed all through high school, and it was stained and bedraggled by the time I graduated. A few years later, I finished it as best I could. When I was thirteen, I inherited an unfinished quilt started by my great-grandmother.