Satisfying Sunday

Yesterday was a fairly good day.  At church, as I was moving through the communion liturgy, I could feel my throat about to crack, and sure enough, I went into a coughing fit.  Because I was at the words of institution, I felt weird about having someone else speak the words--Lutherans believe that only ordained or specially appointed ministers can consecrate the bread and wine.  I think it would have been fine, as long as I was there, but I don't really know how members feel.  So I drank some water, coughed a bit, and powered through.  People were kind.

I have spent most of the week wondering if I'm fighting off a cold:  I'm more tired and less hungry, and my throat has felt a bit scratchy off and on.  And I'm still not here.

I felt good about my sermon, although I'm aware of all the ways it could be improved; you can view it here on my YouTube channel and read it in this blog post).  We spent Sunday afternoon as we usually do, watching other people's sermons from churches where we feel a connection.  No one else preached on the Gospel.

I wanted something else of depth before we reverted to our usual viewing of old TV shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway?  We watched this podcast of David Brooks interviewing philosopher Meghan Sullivan. My spouse and I both have solid liberal arts educations along with graduate degrees, so it wasn't groundbreaking for us, but it felt nourishing.

I did some stitching in the evening so that I stayed awake past 7:15--success!  I'm making smaller squares, the first level of a log cabin square--but they're not all the same size.  I may put them aside and go back to the quilt I'm making for my cousin's first child who graduates from high school this year.

And now, another week:  week 6 at one school, week 3 at another.  We've got sanding to finish at the fixer-upper house.  The work at Faith Lutheran continues.  Onward!

Quilt Camp Confessions

At one point yesterday evening, as I began to despair at ever getting my huge quilt done, I thought of my grandmother.  When I asked her to teach me to quilt, she snorted and said, "Why would you want to quilt when you can just go to Wal-Mart and buy a blanket for six dollars?"

That price tells you how long ago it was.  And yet, that dismissal remains.  I think of how many people during Quilt Camp were astonished at my quilting by hand, by my quilting at all.  Most people at Quilt Camp send their project to their favorite long arm quilter and pay to have the quilting done.  And then they still need to do the binding to finish the quilt.

At times yesterday, I enjoyed the quilting with the multiple memories the fabric inspired:  the few bits from clothes my grandmother made me, the bit from the quilt I made for my now-grown nephew for his first big boy bed, the various squares put together in slightly different ways, my experiment with smaller and smaller scraps.  I thought of all the various friends who gave me their scraps.

I won't lie:  putting together the quilt top is my favorite part of any project, especially in the early days of a project where I don't have to worry as much about how it will all come together into a unified whole.

I was also running on fumes for much of yesterday:  I didn't sleep well because of achiness that comes from quilting for hours in strange positions, staffing the camp store, and an afternoon planning meeting that went long.  By evening, I was despairing, having not made the progress I was anticipating.

I still have some quilting time this morning, and I'm already at the point where I need to be, the point where I can finish the quilt from my living room.  It's the center part that needs to be stabilized before the rest can be done--and that part is much easier done the way I did it over the past two days.

I'm grateful to have had this time, but also a bit sad that I had to be so focused on this one project.  Of course, the next Quilt Camp is only 2 months away, so I don't need to feel sad at all.

First Full Day of Summer 2026 Quilt Camp

I've spent part of the summer finishing the process of putting together the quilt top for the quilt I hoped to be assembling during Summer 2026 Quilt Camp at Lutheridge.  

We've also been going back and forth on the size of the bed we plan to have once we move into the Spartanburg fixer-upper house we bought back in May.  We've finally decided on a king size bed, so I sewed the last panel back to the quilt top; back in July, I had taken that panel off when we changed our minds from king back to queen. Now we're fairly sure it will be a king size bed that we will buy. 

On my way to work on Tuesday, I stopped at Foam and Fabric--they sell wide fabric for quilt backs, and I decided that it was worth the cost so that I didn't have to sew the back together.

Yesterday morning, I was ready to start quilting.  Because Summer Quilt Camp has less attendance than other times of the year, I was able to use extra tables to make the quilting of the king size quilt easier.  I spread out the backing fabric and then the batting and then spent time figuring out how to position the top.

I spent yesterday quilting the middle of the quilt.  I wanted to make sure I got that part stabilized in case I couldn't complete the project during this retreat.

People dropped by my station to take a closer look.  Before I close up the project, I thought that I, too, should preserve a closer look.  I'm not only quilting by hand, but I also sewed the whole top by hand.

It's a lot of sewing, but it's usually done when I'm watching T.V.  or chatting.  It's often part of my self-soothing tool kit, which doing it by machine would not be.  I've also done other projects along the way.  It's taken a long time, but I haven't really noticed.

This morning, I went back to past blog posts, and here's the one where I see the project that inspired me, back in the Fall 2022 Quilt Camp.  By January, I had made some progress, documented in this blog post.    Along the way, a friend showed me that I didn't need sashing between the squares, and that decision made the assembly of the top much more fun.

I spent one Quilt Camp putting squares together on design boards in search of the perfect flow of colors, which I then sewed together, only to realize that I didn't really have enough for a queen size bed.  I sewed more squares, and when I returned to the project, I put squares together into long panels more randomly, which worked just as well.

Quilting is never my favorite part of the project, at least not bed-size projects.  It's hard on the fingers and the back--and other muscles too.  But with this project, I've had an unexpected benefit:  the chance to return to all those squares, to marvel at the differences in scraps included, to delight in all the colors and fabrics in this quilt.

Onward to Day 2!

Long Lasting Labyrinth Made of Braids

Yesterday, I posted this picture after we finished setting up the labyrinth at the chapel at Lutheridge:

Early on, the Create in Me retreat ended with closing worship and a labyrinth walk.  We have occasionally used the labyrinth that was created at the old tennis court, but it's not very accessible--and right now, it's still under downed trees.  So back in 2009, we created the braided strips that make the labyrinth.

How do I know that?  I went back to my blog and found this blog post that describes making the strips.  I also found this blog post which is a photo essay, and this post, which describes the experience of using the strips in words.

I have many reasons for why I continue to blog:  this ability to quickly find answers to the "what year was that?" or "how did this project go?" questions is one big reason why I keep blogging.

On the braided strips, we wrote prayers, along with gratitude and appreciation.  This morning, I thought about those prayers from 2009.  How many of them have been answered?  I thought about all of the people:  those of us we prayed for, those of us who did the praying.  Who is still alive?

I thought of all the ways we've used these long, braided strips:  for every Create in Me retreat since (almost 2 decades!).  Other retreats have used the braids, even non-Lutheridge retreats.  Other people have been inspired to try something similar.  I love that it's a budget friendly way to create a labyrinth.

It's a great metaphor for all the ways that our prayers and communities support us, even as the years and decades go on.  We braid our prayers together, in a variety of ways.  Those prayers braid us together, both immediately and through the years.  God, the master fabric artist, takes our offerings and weaves together our communities into an even more beautiful creation.

Sewing on the Machine at Quilt Camp

Yesterday at Quilt Camp, I got out my sewing machine, which might surprise those who know me.  For much of my life, I've sewed by hand.  I'm still deeply committed to sewing by hand, particularly as a self-calming practice.  Stitching a seam by hand not only calms my brain but also settles my attention.

I am the only person at Quilt Camp who does most of her sewing by hand.  I don't have a sewing room, so if I'm sewing, it's likely at the kitchen table which is problematic for many reasons.  But honestly, for many reasons, I actually prefer to sew by hand.

So last night, after posting the below picture, I made this Facebook post:  "Those of you who know me, are you more surprised to find out that I'm still awake at 10 p.m. or that I've been sewing on a sewing machine all day at Quilt Camp?"

All of the piles of blocks behind me were stitched by hand.  But yesterday, I wanted one of the sewing machine experts to see if she could get the bobbin winder to work.  She could not.  So why did I keep sewing on the machine?

One of my Quilt Camp friends had won a batch of quilt blocks as a prize, which we both agreed was a strange prize for a quilt contest, and she was trying to figure out how to assemble them into charity quilts, her task assigned to her as she claimed her prize.  I offered to help.  Here we are, me showing her the long strips I decided to assemble:

I knew that getting the quilt top done during the retreat was my best hope of getting it done, so I just kept sewing and sewing.  And finally, at 9:20, as Duke was winning the basketball game that some of my Quilt Camp compatriots were watching, I did.  However, I forgot to take a picture of the finished quilt top. 

Soon I'll head back to Quilt Camp for the last morning.  I'll get my cloth organized so that I can keep sewing small scraps into log cabin squares, the sewing that I do in the evening as we watch T.V. together.  It's been a good Quilt Camp, but it's time to come back down from the mountain (and I'll be rejoicing that my trip home is very short).

Quilt Camp Midway Report

 Much of yesterday, I would have looked like this:

I've had one of those Quilt Camp weeks where I've had to balance the retreat and the other duties of my life.  Yesterday I had planned to go to the class I'm taking, Lutheran Confessions, by way of Zoom and come to Quilt Camp in the afternoon.  But my professor was having travel related disruptions, so we didn't have class.  I got several additional quilting hours in the morning--hurrah!

I made progress both on my own projects and on one of our group projects:

We were asked to take one of the paper doll forms and add fabric scraps to it to represent ourselves.  We've been putting them on the poster, and as we've been looking at our work, we've been praying for each other.

I loved making my self portrait in threads and fabric scraps:

I am tired, tired, tired.  Ordinarily I might say that I'm tired in a good way.  But last night, as my energy level crashed, I spiraled into a strange thought pattern, feeling like all of my fabric art is ugly, ugly, ugly.  What was that all about?

Part of it is being surrounded by other quilting artists who are all doing very different work from the work I'm doing:

My workspace is full of scraps, and the process of putting them into larger squares usually delights me.  The process still delights me, but I'm less sure how well it all works together.  I put some of my more varied squares together and felt despair.  I've got autumnal squares (think browns, coppers, oranges, yellows) and jewel tone squares.  Last night I thought, I've really got two quilts here--which might not be a bad thing.  But will I ever actually finish?

I'm also noticing a pattern in my larger life.  It's easy for me to do the individual parts, but harder to finish the larger project.  I thought about my writing life and all the poems I've written--but so few larger books.  

On the one hand, I take delight in the process, the creativity itself, the commitment to doing creative stuff every day.  On the other hand, I wonder how it might all be different if I focused on seeing a project through to the end.

Do I let myself off the hook too easily?  Should I be more rigorous?  If I decide I should be more rigorous, is it too late?

Let me remind myself of this article I read in The New York Times, an article that talks about Matisse in his later years, his last years, and an exhibition of his work from this time:  "The show includes more than 300 works on loan from around the world (with some exhibited for the first time) that demonstrate how wide the French master’s oeuvre stretched beyond his best-known paintings — to innovative drawings, gouache cutouts, illustrated books, textiles and stained-glass windows. It also challenges the conventional understanding of any artist’s 'late' years as an inevitable tapering off. Here, we see a blossoming, a relentless drive to experiment in new mediums and a radical simplicity that only a lifetime of making could achieve."

A Look Back: 2025

I've been thinking about my approach to the new year; I have been keeping a blog since 2008, so I also have a fairly easy way to see what I do each year.  Some years, I set intentions or adopt resolutions.  Some years I have a word/phrase.  Most years in the waning days of December, I look back.  So, for today's blog post, let's look back.

My Intentions for 2025

On January 1, 2025, I wrote a blog post where I had three specific intentions for 2025.  Up until the moment that I wrote that post, I had no plans to adopt these intentions.  Let's start with these intentions, as I look back on 2025:

--"I want to do strength training 20 days out of every month, 10 minutes over an exercise session."  Most weeks, I did a day or two of strength training, either with weights, or with the weigh of my body.  That means that most months, I did 6 days of strength training, not 20.  

--"I want to end the year with 52 poems written, finished poems. They may not be worth sending out, but they need to be finished."  I did much better with this goal during the first three months of 2025.  I did end up with somewhere between 15 and 25 finished poems, which is more than I would have had without that intention.

For both of the above intentions, the good thing about those intentions is that I remembered that I had the intention, and throughout the year, the intention called me back, tugged me back to the behavior I wanted to cultivate.

--"I want to concentrate on faces (both from the front and profile) and hands, and not in isolation, but as part of the figures that I draw."  Here, too, I did much better with this intention in the first months of the year than in the last 9 months of the year.  I drew much better faces, when I was concentrating.  I still have trouble drawing hands if they're connected to the rest of the body.

Other Aspects of 2025

--I continue to enjoy teaching.  It was great to teach literature survey classes again.  I revisited some classic texts, which is always interesting, especially as I revisit them at very different times of my life.

--I finished my MDiv degree at Wesley Theological Seminary.  I find it interesting that when I thought about the high points of 2025, the teaching was what came to mind before finishing the MDiv degree.  I'm not reading too much into that.  I finished the MDiv in May and my brain tends to work back in chronology--so since I've been teaching more recently than finishing the MDiv, that's what came to mind first.  It's also because I had such a good fall semester teaching such great students and classes.

--When I went back and counted my non-drinking days, I've been very successful.  I still drink, but I did have a long stretch in the summer where I drank no alcohol.  Stay tuned for my 2026 intention in terms of health.

--I haven't read as many books this year (only 50, if my list can be believed), but at the end of the year, I've been on a reading binge, and I'm always happy to find my powers of concentration still allow me to read a book from beginning to end.

--I finished a quilt top, which I used with an old quilt that I created twenty years ago to create something new.  The old quilt had a back that was in good shape, so I quilted the new top to the old quilt and created a binding/border.  I've continued to put fabric together in ways that delight me.

--My job as a Synod Appointed Minister continues at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  They like me, and I like them, and although they've tried to find a full-time pastor, those attempts haven't led them to a viable candidate.  Periodically, I remind us all that if the congregation finds a great candidate and decides to offer them a job, I'll understand.  Similarly, we don't know what my Candidacy Committee will decide at various stages.

--In terms of candidacy, I have made some progress on the road to ordination.  I finished my MDiv which some people might think would mean I should be ordained by now.  But I went to a Methodist seminary, so that's not the way that ordination works at this point in the ELCA, the more progressive expression of Lutheran churches in the US.  Over the summer, I did the required CPE training at the Asheville VA Hospital, but I have had to wait until Spring 2026 semester to take the Lutheran Foundations course that I need.  Will I need more classes?  Will I also have to do an internship?  Stay tuned.

Returning to Bethlehem Again

I spent much of yesterday doing volunteer work, but not the traditional kind.  I haven't been stocking the food pantry or knitting scarves.  Yesterday I went over to a local Methodist church that allows its gym to be transformed into ancient Bethlehem for a walk-through, immersive experience, Return to Bethlehem.  All proceeds go to Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM), an interfaith group which works on hunger and homelessness issues in Buncombe county, the county which contains Asheville.

I first started doing this volunteer work in December of 2023, and I wrote a blog post about it, which I'll quote here:   "I thought it might be something like a living Nativity scene, maybe with a few extra scenes. I was wrong. It's a whole living Nativity village. One of the supervisors walked me through the space, telling me about how the visitors would stop at each station to hear actors tell about the space. For example, there's a weaver's house, and the Temple, and a place where a person dyes cloth. Eventually the tour ends up at the inn and the stable outside of the inn."

It takes a lot of work to make this transformation:  lots of hanging and draping of fabric, LOTS of industrial stapling, lots of arranging of baskets and chairs and potted plants and such.  I love doing it, and I'm happy to help.  It hits a weird combination of my interests:  the illusions of stagecraft, theatre, fabric, color and texture--creating illusions and believability.

Here's a 2023 picture, when the theatre flats were first being assembled.

Eventually each station gets its own furniture and tubs of supplies.  We have other tubs of fabric we can use, all sorts of fabrics.

And then, finally, a finished product, in this case, the Temple (this is a 2023 picture--I forgot to take pictures of  yesterday's creation, where I used more blue fabrics and velvets).

It's more standing on a ladder than I'd like, but I'm happy I can still do it.  I expected to be much more sore this morning than I am.

After a morning working on the Return to Bethlehem sets, I went over to the local Lutheran church to work on Lutheran World Relief quilts.  We assembled 4 quilts to get them ready for knotting.  I prefer to assemble quilt tops out of all the fabric we have, but by assembling those quilts, one of our members could take them home to get the knotting done.  I did bring some fabric home in the hopes that I/we can assemble a quilt top or two in the next week.  And then I made some repairs to a quilt top that my spouse had been assembling before he got frustrated and made ill-advised cuts.

Today I'll go back to the Methodist church--we're racing against the clock, since Return to Bethlehem opens at 6 tonight.  When I left yesterday at 1, we had made good progress, and more volunteers were expected.  Many of us have some experience now, which makes it easier to get things done.  And we seem to have enough ladders and enough staplers, lacks which have slowed us down in the past.

And now it is time to shift my morning into a different gear, to get ready for another day of volunteering in this way.

 

Thanksgiving History in Fabric Scraps

Here I sit, at the kitchen table of the big, ramshackle house at Lutheridge, the church camp where my family has always had our holiday festivities (well, since 1992 or so), the house where we’ve assembled for at least 20 years.  It was at this table, on the Saturday of Thanksgiving week-end in 2022, where I first assembled the log cabin patch out of scraps, and I’ve been doing it ever since, and may just continue to do it until my fingers won’t let me.

It has been a great Thanksgiving this year, although zooming by too fast, and I know I likely say that every year.  This year, all the members of the next generation are teenagers now, which brings a certain sadness about all the books we’re not reading about giving a mouse a cookie or llamas in pajamas.

 Happily, there are other joys.  We spent much of the week-end helping the oldest teenager in the house with a project she envisioned:  letters made of fabric scraps, sewed on a sweatshirt.  When my cousin wrote me in advance and told me what she had in mind, I brought all my fabric scraps with me.

 

 

The project became a bit bigger than we first thought it would be.  She chose small squares, and we made them into larger squares of four patches; then we made took the template she’d made of paper letters and cut out the fabric.  We used the Steam-a-seam product to make sure the letters didn’t move around.

 

 

And what do you know—it worked!  It looked very much like the picture that had provided the inspiration, and she was very happy with it.  The whole family had a great spirit going in, and they assured my spouse and me (mostly me) that whatever happened would be fine.  I was worried about a ruined sweatshirt and the crushing of creative dreams—I’m so happy that didn’t happen.  The oldest teenager was so happy with her creation that she wore it on the long car trip home.  I wish we had had more time to sew the letters to the sweatshirt, but she knows how to do it, and her mom knows some folks who will help, and in the meantime, they won’t wash the sweatshirt.

In a way, that’s a metaphor for the whole holiday time together—the worry that the experience won’t live up to expectations, the happiness of time together, the realization that it’s all going to be O.K., even if not exactly perfect.

                                                                                                           

Quilt Camp Homily: the Prophetess Anna and Our Quilting/Spiritual Life

I gave the homily for our Saturday night Quilt Camp closing worship.  I wanted to take a minute and make a record of the experience before it slips away.

Our Bible verse was Psalm 91: 4, and we focused on the first part, about God covering us with God's feathers and sheltering us beneath wings.  We talked about wings and feathers and angels.  We had a prayer board in the shape of wings, and we had feathers where we wrote prayers.

I wanted my homily to go in a slightly different direction--what happens when we don't feel that sheltering space?  What happens when it looks like everyone else's prayers get answered and not ours?  How many of us feel too old for whatever might have once seemed to make us special?

We had begun the retreat by talking about where we had sensed the presence of angels, and I started my sermon by talking about the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary, but that's really a young person's story.  Can you imagine if Gabriel came to any of us with that possibility?  We'd say, "Hmm, mother of the Messiah--not really my calling thanks."  

So I thought about other people who make an appearance in our Advent and Christmas texts.  I thought about Elizabeth, who gets to be the mother of John the Baptist.  But she doesn't even get the angel message herself; it comes through her husband, who laughs at the idea that his very old wife might have a baby.  He's struck mute through the whole pregnancy for his disbelief.  But it's still pregnancy, still not everyone's idea of fulfillment.

I continued:  I call your attention to a bit later in the story, when Joseph and Mary bring the baby Jesus to the Temple.  Simeon has been promised that he will not die without seeing the Messiah, and he holds the baby Jesus, holding the light of the world in his arms.  But I call your attention to Anna in Luke 2:  36-38 (I read the text).  We may think of Mary Magdalen as the first evangelist, the first to tell of the empty tomb, but I've come to think of Anna as the first, as she goes out to tell everyone about the Messiah.

Of course, it's sobering to realize that by the time the Gospel of Luke was written, that very Temple has been destroyed, and it will be thousands of years before there will be another one.

Then I took the turn to quilting:  it's a bit like quilting.  Some of us have everything we need, the right material, the sewing machine that is up to the job.  Other times, we discover we didn't buy enough cloth, and it's no longer available, and we have to figure out what to do.  There are times we are given a quilt started generations before, and it comes with no instructions, and we have to figure out a way.  And we, too, will die.  Maybe someone else will complete our projects, maybe not.  But we continue to do what we can do.

The life of faith is like this.  Some times, everything goes well.  Other times, the sewing machine explodes.  But we are in a group that can keep us going, keep us encouraged, help us solve the problems.

I concluded with what I think is the most important thing to remember:  when we feel abandoned by God or abandoned by our quilt group, we're not.  God is still there, although we may not be able to hear God.  Even someone like Mother Theresa has felt this way, as we discovered, when her letters were published after her death.  Some people thought her doubt diminished her, but I felt just the opposite, this relief that if even someone like Mother Theresa feels doubt, then I shouldn't feel alarm when I feel abandoned.

The trick is to keep going, keep working on our quilts, keep believing until the time when it isn't so hard to keep going.

As I delivered the homily, I noticed a few people wiping their eyes.  I noticed people smiling and nodding--happily, I didn't see any angry expressions.

I felt good about my homily, and I got good feedback, from people who appreciated the brevity to those who appreciated the message which gave them hope.  But most importantly, I feel that my homily spoke to those who were feeling loss and grief, emotions that are never very far away, especially for those of us who are on the older side of life.

Quilt Camp Begins

 I am glad I was able to be here yesterday to help with set up for Quilt Camp.  We don't have to do the heavy lifting work, the getting the 90 tables in place in the Faith Center at Lutheridge.  But we did need to do the other work:  deciding where the cutting tables and ironing boards will be, putting plastic tablecloths on the tables in the worst condition, going out to get more plastic tablecloths, running extension cords from plugs to tables, and those kinds of things.

We also had to do the work that seems trivial but takes time:  putting nametags into plastic holders, putting those plastic holders on the table so that retreat members could find them easily, lots and lots of organizing of supplies.

By the time that everyone arrived and settled in, I was tired.  But it was a pleasant tired, a far cry from the tired that I feel after driving in from a distance for a retreat.  I got some sewing done, and today I hope to make serious progress on my big project:  a new quilt top for the quilt that we sleep under.  The quilt top is created.  I'll attach it to the old quilt and put on a new binding.  The quilt back is still in good shape.

It may seem like a strange approach, adding a new quilt top to an old quilt.  But in fact, it's a very old approach:  quilters in past centuries didn't have access to supplies that we do, so they used old quilts as the layer of batting in new quilts.

I also plan to make progress on my other big project, the log cabin quilt, the one I thought I might be able to finish back in March.  But when I stretched it on the bed, I realized I needed a few more rows.  I've been making log cabin patches, so we shall see.

We're having glorious weather, which is a gift.  I am leading a walk each day at 3, and if the weather this week was the rainy, cold weather of last week, we'd ditch those plans.  At Quilt Camp, we spend much of the day and night in a chair, and I spend it hunched over, which is my posture any time I'm in a chair. 

I am surprised to realize I took no pictures yesterday.   Happily there is still time.

A Wonderful All Saints Sunday

 We had a great All Saints Sunday.  Much as people complain about the time change, every autumn when we turn the clocks back, I have a night of wonderful sleep.  This year was no exception.  Because of the time change, we were both up early, and we headed over the mountains to Bristol early.

It was wonderful to travel in the daylight, to see the trees in their full and fading autumnal glory.  This year, various trees are on their own schedule.  Some are still green.  Some have lost all their leaves.  There's every variety of in between.  It's not as full and blazingly beautiful as two or three years ago, but it's been a treat, especially considering last year.

I was glad for the extra time, because we had a lot to unload.  I knew that the confirmation class, and perhaps all the youth who arrived for Sunday school, would set up the space I envisioned for people to put photos and other mementos of loved ones who had died.  I brought all the supplies:  fabrics, fairy lights, candles (both traditional and electronic), candle holders, 2 yellow mums, and a small table.  I gathered 2 additional small tables from the sacristy.

The youth did a great job of working together to create the space.  They are two pairs of siblings, and the siblings are cousins, so we had a head start in working together.  They seem like the kind of cousins who are more like siblings, siblings who like each other and have fun together.  I was so impressed with what they created:

The congregation came through too--we had plenty of pictures, so many that we added two additional flat spaces (flipped boxes with white tablecloths to hide their identity).  

After church, we spent some time in the front, hearing stories of the loved ones whose pictures had graced our worship space.  I had made extra bread, and people ate bread or took some home.  It was delightful, a way of having a picnic with the ancestors.

My sermon went well, which is always a treat for me.  What I mean by well is not that everyone loved it, but that I felt good about my delivery (not too much reading, not getting tongue twisted).  If you want to view the recording, it's here on my YouTube channel.  If you want to read a version, head to this post on my theology blog.

We came home and relaxed, as we always do.  Sunday afternoons come after very full mornings, so we're not going to be doing much of substance.  We watched a great PBS show about a man who was taking a last trip on a buckboard wagon pulled by his 36 year old mule on their last trip in Hyde county, NC.  It was oddly compelling.  I did a bit of sewing on my quilt top and headed to bed.

Today I have two days of work, and the rest of the week is spent at Quilt Camp, just up the hill at Lutheridge.  I'll sleep in my house and spend the rest of my time at Quilt Camp.  I'm hoping to make progress on a variety of projects.

It sounds heavenly, and it will be, but first I have to do the prep work so that I can be gone from my full-time teaching job.  I am probably further along on that project than I think, but I feel a bit of anxiety.  At the same time, I'm sure it will all be fine.  It's nice to be at a school where I can rest easy in the knowledge that it will all be fine, even as I'm feeling a bit of anxiety.

Last Thoughts on the Create in Me Retreat; Last Weeks at Seminary

Here we are, the last week of April, the last week of seminary classes--wow.  Let me capture a few fragments from the past week-end.

--It was a great Create in Me retreat.  Closing worship was very moving, and I'm really glad that I rearranged my schedule to be able to stay.  I also helped with clean up, and then I got to spend the afternoon with a Create in Me friend who had flown in from Minnesota.  Her plane didn't leave until 7:45 p.m., so we had time to go to Sierra Nevada for lunch and a wander through their gardens and to pop by the Asheville Herb Festival at the Ag center.  We came back to my house, chatted some more, and then she took a nap on the sofa while I looked through resources for my seminary paper that's due on Thursday.

--I enjoy the retreat because of the wealth of supplies and the chance to create in mediums both familiar and new to me.  But I love the chance to catch up with friends.  Many of them I see only once or twice a year, but they are the kind of friends whom I would trust with my life.

--As I moved through the week-end, conversations swirled around me, which is part of the nature of the retreat:  one works at a table while others talk nearby, and sometimes, it's me doing the talking.  I was surprised by how many people have lost loved ones to Covid in the past few years.  I continue to be surprised by how many non-Covid deaths have been the "loved one was fine and then dropped dead suddenly."  I realize I'm getting old, and therefore, I'm more likely to have people in my orbit who die, both suddenly and in a prolonged way.

--As we wrapped up, someone asked me if they could have the butterfly that I made for my drop-in station as a sample.  I had left it at the gallery display area.  I was happy to give it away, and she acted so, so happy that I gave it to her.  That, in turn, made me even happier.

--I was able to get to yoga each morning.  We started with a song which is really a Psalm, 51:  1-2 and 10-12, and we learned some stretching moves to go along with them.  We also used the Graham Kendrick song.  All last night, these words were singing through my brain :  "Have mercy on me Oh God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, Blot out my transgressions, wash me away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin."

--Today will be a day of more grading than paper writing.  My Spartanburg Methodist College grades are due tomorrow, and I hope to have them all turned in today.  There should be time for a walk each day.

--Even though I have a lot to get done this week, it will feel more leisurely, since I'm not driving to Spartanburg each day.

Ways to Greet the Day: Lost Lenses or Fabric in Our Hands

It has already been a strange morning.  I put on my glasses that I use to read the computer when my contacts aren't in, and I thought my vision was odd.  I took them off and realized I didn't have as much trouble reading the computer screen as usual.  I thought it was my left eye that was strange.  Could I have left a contact lens in?  I touched my eye, and it didn't seem to be there.  The contact wasn't in the lens case.  Long story short:  last night, I took the lens out of my left eye, put it in the right side of the case, and left my right contact lens in my eye all night.  So I put the lenses in their proper case and later, I may or may not put them in my eyes.

I have that kind of flexibility today because I'm not driving down to Spartanburg; today is the first full day of spring Quilt Camp at Lutheridge!

Yesterday was also strange.  I did a lot of prepping to get ready for my time away, and then I headed over to the audiologist to get her help with my hearing aid.  It has a protective part at the end, designed to be removed, and when I took my hearing aid out on Monday, the protective part stayed in my ear.  Happily, it was easy for her to remove.  I didn't panic on Monday--well, after the first bit of panic--because I reasoned that the tip is designed to be in my ear canal for long periods of time.

Once I got back from the audiologist, it was off to work.  It was a good teaching day.

I drove back to North Carolina and stopped at the Faith Center on my way in.  I don't have as much to unload as the Quilt Camp folks who come with two sewing machines, a chair, and an extra table, but it does take me several trips back and forth to the car to get all my cloth around me.

I went to dinner with some friends; most Quilt Camp meals will be served at the dining hall, but meals don't start until the first full day, today.  I'm really looking forward to breakfasts that are much more than my usual bowl of enhanced oatmeal.

Since I am up early anyway, I'm the one who opens the Faith Center for those of us who want to greet the sunrise with fabric in our hands.  Let me close this post so I can get ready. 

Reweaving My Frazzled Threads

This morning is one of those mornings when I feel a bit frazzled and overextended.  Let me collect some threads and see what I can weave together.

--I have turned in midterm grades for Spartanburg Methodist College.  Hurrah!  I am trying something new this term, frontloading the more intensive assignments, the research assignments, to the front half of the class.  I think it's better for students, but it has meant a tiring few weeks for me.

--I go to an audiologist this morning.  I have had my hearing checked before, but it was around 2009 or so.  I have already found out that my health insurance doesn't cover hearing aids, but that wasn't a surprise to me.  I may make the investment.  After all, we've invested in vision aids and teeth--why not hearing?  These are the decisions that might mean we have a healthier old age.

--My audiologist appointment was for next week, when SMC is on spring break, but they called to offer me this morning's spot because someone had cancelled.  I am glad I was able to say yes--perhaps next Friday will now feel more spacious.

--For one of my seminary classes, we have to choose five weeks where we'll do a more intense thinking about the week's texts.  Tonight we study the non-canonical birth narratives.  I decided not to do the more intense engagement.  I am not likely to ever preach or teach on those texts, so I'll save my intense thinking for later.

--I was sad to hear of the death of Martin E. Marty, a prominent theologian and a Lutheran.  In recent years, I haven't read as much of his work, but there were times when I read his short articles on a regular basis and found his voice one of sanity and compassion. 

--I was sad, and yet the man was 97 years old, so I'm also happy that he lived a long and fruitful life.

--I was happy to read this article in The Washington Post about an unexpected benefit of drinking tea.  When I clicked on the link, I expected that the benefit would have something to do with vitamin absorption or hydration.  Lo and behold, steeping tea can lead to reducing toxins like lead that might be in the water.  The tea leaves attract the toxins and hold them, while releasing their own benefits.  Hurrah!

--I think about the years when I worried about my tea consumption, worried that the tannins might be doing something to my stomach, the way that they discolored tea pitchers.  But through the decades, we've found more and more benefits to tea drinking.

--I am also thinking of past years and my fabric buying.  This week, Joann Fabric announced it will close all stores.  That store used to be one I went to much more regularly, back in the days when they had cheaper alternatives to the fancier cloth/quilt shops, back when I was making more baby quilts.

--And then my brain went to the going out of business sales that they might have.  I probably have more fabric than I can use in the lifetime that I have left--but I do have some quilts that will need some backing fabric.  I wonder how much time is left for those stores and when the sales will start.

Well, let me shift gears and think about a sunrise walk.  Yesterday I even did a bit of jogging.  I am relieved to be getting out of my chair this week.  Last week was tough, with cold and ice and wind.

Christmas Eve Report

At the end of the day yesterday, when I realized I was very tired (a good tired, but tired), my spouse said, "Of course.  You spent the whole day getting ready for the Christmas Eve service."  My first response was, "No I didn't."  But then I realized that with the exception of some grocery shopping and a short walk, yes, I did indeed spend the day getting ready for the service, experiencing the service, and then coming back across the mountain.

It was a great day.  

I spent several hours making angels from fabric, only to get to the church to remember that we don't do a youth sermon on Christmas Eve.  Ah well--I'll use them later.  And it might work out well, because my little angels won't be competing with so much for their attention.

The church was beautiful, as was the music.  If you'd like to hear/watch the sermon, I am happy to be able to say that I've downloaded it to my YouTube channel, and you can access it here.

Everyone was in a great mood, which is one of my favorite aspects of Christmas Eve.   I've baptized three babies since being at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN, and all three were at worship last night--I felt a bit awestruck by it all.  I didn't expect to get a second Christmas with this congregation, and I felt overwhelming gratitude to be there.

I was also grateful that my spouse was well enough to be there.  It's been a tough autumn, and part of what made it tough is that my spouse was struggling with pulled muscles which led to extreme pain (happily resolved by bed rest, which was also a struggle) and then for the past 3 weeks, he's had a cold.  

I expected heavier traffic, especially during our trip over--we left at 2:30, and the traffic was more like Sunday morning than what I thought Christmas Eve afternoon would be.  When we travel through the mountains at night, I'm always startled by how dark it is, but happily, my spouse was nonplussed.

After the service, everyone took pictures by the Chrismon tree.  When the organist asked if we'd like her to take our picture, we said yes.

I'm not thrilled with this picture--who are these older people?  I want to believe that we don't look like this in real life.  We're both carrying extra weight, and I feel like I look even frumpier than usual in this photo.  But I'm also at the point where I care less.  Yes, I am heavier because I'm not spending several hours each day trying hard to keep weight off.  Keeping weight off takes extraordinary focus and rigidity on my part.  But despite extra weight, I'm healthy, and for that I am grateful.

Today will be a quieter day--we have a turkey to roast, and I think it's defrosted.  It will be not as cold this afternoon (52 degrees for a high), so I hope to take a walk.  Our families are far away, so there won't be extended family time today.  So today won't feel vastly different from other days, the way that Christmas did when I was a child.

But I am grateful:  grateful to have survived this tumultuous autumn mostly unscathed (but not unchanged), grateful to have several jobs which I love and which nourish me, grateful for health and a new roof over my head (bought and installed just a few weeks before the hurricane) and water that comes out of the tap that I can drink again.

Haunted by Color, Soothed by Stitching

I turned in my last seminary paper on Saturday, and I turned in my last batch of grades a few days before that.  But yesterday, Thursday, was my first truly unscheduled day of this winter break.  On Sunday, I spent a good chunk of the day attending to my preaching job, on Monday I went to Columbia, on Tuesday I came home, and on Wednesday, I had a holiday lunch with the local church quilt group and an evening Zoom session.  At one point, my spouse said, "Did the Little Engine Who Could have a name?  Because you remind me of an Energizer Bunny in the way that you keep going."

It's a mix of metaphors, but I understand what he was saying.  Even when I'm on break, I'm not really on break.  I still have my part-time preaching job, and there are upcoming classes that start on January 7, onground classes where I need to create syllabi still.  And even though I know that I'm done with the fall semester responsibilities, both as teacher and student, I still wake up in the middle of the night feeling fretful.

I still did a bit of chugging along; I wanted to get to Michael's to get new sketchbooks while they were on sale.  So after rounding up the last of the recycling before the arrival of the trash collectors, I headed out to run some errands.  We did a bit of cooking, and then settled in to watch some plays by way of the National Theatre at Home.  I had to subscribe for a class, and we've been enjoying watching good theatre.  Yesterday we watched two plays.

I still felt fidgety, so I pulled out my basket of fabric.  I've been creating a quilt out of scraps of fabric--you may say, "Yes, that's the very nature of quilting, correct?  Scraps of fabric?"  But I began this project by thinking I would put the scraps together in a less organized way.  I thought I could pay no attention to size or color of each scrap and just put them together as I pulled them out of the basket.  Here's what I have so far:

Clearly, I'm not putting this quilt together in the random way I first envisioned.  But I'm having fun assembling my scraps into longer strips.  Here's the one I worked on last night:

And then I did a few quick sketches for notecards that I'm always creating.  You can see one nestled in the cloth:

Today I'll do a bit more writing than yesterday, a bit more shopping than yesterday (4 x the fuel points at Ingles!).  But I plan to keep doing some sewing each day.  It reminds me of this quote that I saw on the wall of the museum on Tuesday:

Report from Labor Day Week-end

This has been a good week-end, and not just because I had yesterday off.  Let me capture some of the elements that made it special before they slip away into the mists of September memory:

--I enjoyed working on seminary classes.  They are going to be even better than I expected, and I was expecting them to be wonderful.  This morning, I watched some of the videos from my Biblical Storytelling class, and I thought, my drama nerd heart is very happy at the thought of this class.

--I had some good sewing time.  I worked on my quilt top, which always brings me joy, and in the spirit of full disclosure, is also bringing me some frustration as it gets bigger and bigger.  The frustration comes from needing longer and longer strips, so I'm no longer piecing together very small scraps.  But I've always found it soothing to sew in straight lines, so overall, I'm still happy with this project.  Here it is, stretched out across our queen sized bed, with burgundy comforter and pillows visible at the top.

--I also had fun constructing some projects for the upcoming Crafts for Christmas week-end.  I was trying to make an angel out of circles, and it took me several attempts before getting something close to what I had in mind:

My friend was making these angels out of paper and flat bead faces to put into Christmas cards.  

When I saw hers, I wondered if I could create something similar in cloth.  Now I'm pretty sure that I can.

--On Saturday, we had brunch with a variety of second cousins and their children and grandchildren.  What a treat!

--I was very pleased with how my sermon went on Sunday, and several people told me they liked it, people who don't always say that.  Hurrah!  You can read that sermon here.  

--I had wonderful walks, full of mists and fall colors.  

A new season is underway!

Prayer Squares

Before we get too far away from Sunday, let me make a post about the prayer squares that I made for the youth on Sunday.

In some ways, it began 2 weeks ago, when I didn't want to create a children's sermon about the beheading of John the Baptist.  I decided to create a 3 week series on prayer practices that would culminate in the Blessing of the Backpack service.

Two weeks ago, I talked about prayers we already knew, like the Lord's Prayer.  On July 21, I came prepared with bags of beads and yarn and lanyard plastic.  I talked about prayer beads and rosaries and gave them each a sandwich bag of supplies to make their own set of prayer beads, and I talked about prayer being a friendship bracelet with God.

On July 28, I brought the prayer square that I got earlier this summer when I was at LTSS for the last onground intensive that would be held at Southern.  

I talked about the square reminding us that people are praying for us, along with threads so that we could add our own prayers, maybe with a knot to remind us, and to remind us of how prayer stitches communities together.

And then I offered the basket to have each youth pick a square, and we talked about ways they could be used.  I talked about the symbols they would see on the front and back of the squares:  life preservers, fish, lighthouses, and compass points.  Each square has long strands on each corner; they can be knotted or braided together or cut off the quilted square, if it was too distracting.

My spouse and I talked about whether or not any of our childhood churches had talked about prayer practices or other types of spiritual disciplines, and we couldn't remember much that was practical.  To be fair, we really couldn't remember much at all, and it is getting to be a long time ago.  In Confirmation class, we talked about the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, but we didn't spend much time thinking/talking about what it meant to our everyday lives.

I do realize that the children I encounter may not remember the tools I'm trying to give them, but that's O.K.  Hopefully they'll remember that there were adults along the way who stressed God's love for us and ways we could remember that love when the world doesn't always make it easy.

Theologian to the Algorithm: Inspirations from Quilt Camp

On Wednesday morning, I had 15 squares that needed finishing.  This morning, I have 8.  In some ways, I thought I was making more progress.  I thought I might be able to sew the whole top together, but I don't think that will happen this week.  I am fine with that.

I've gotten a chance to connect with old friends.  I've taken a look at their projects and heard about their lives.  That aspect is one of the most important parts of a retreat for me.

I've gotten a lot of sewing done, and a lot of sorting of scraps.  I have an idea for a next project, one that will be easier to pick up and put down as I keep my spouse company while he watches T.V.

I've gotten other work done too, seminary work and teaching work, done with scraps of time here or there.  It's a valuable lesson, and I'm glad that I learned it early--one can accomplish a lot, even if one only has 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there.

I've remembered other truths too, like the calming effect of stitching straight lines by hand.  In our devotional time on Wednesday night, we took a deep breath in and a deep breath out.  We did it a few more times.  I thought, I know the power of deep breathing--why do I always forget to do it?

I've heard from several people who tune in to morning watch, the short devotional that I do each morning.  It's housed on my Florida church's Facebook page, and I link to it on my Facebook page each day.  I started doing it 4 years ago, as various church members were trying to keep our community sane and grounded and connected.  It's good for me, so I keep doing it.  I hear from a few people who leave comments, but there's no way for me to know the ultimate numbers of who views it.  I have never been able to decipher Facebook's metrics, and I'm sure that's by design.  Right now, it's free, so why not continue?

I say free, and I do realize that Facebook gets something out of it, or we wouldn't be able to use the site the way we do.  It's hard for me to imagine that my 12 minutes of devotional time is very useful to the algorithm creators who vacuum up all our data and content, but who knows.

Now I have a vision of generative AI learning by using my morning devotional time, which uses Phyllis Tickle's work in The Divine Hours, which uses an ancient lectionary.  That's me, theologian to AI and the algorithm!

I love retreats for the wide ranging inspirations they provide.  Happily, this one is no different.