Sew What?

Try this sometime: pick a massive creative project and ask a friend to help you with it. Last weekend my friend and I ‘built a quilt’. We let our funky imaginations take a vacation from daily demands to mingle and design something colorful and unique, just for the fun of it.

Our masterpiece is not quite finished, but we made great progress. As we assembled the quilt, our friendship deepened as we fashioned it with lots of words, spiritual pondering, laughs, tears, good food, and even a little wine.

Of course I got to thinking metaphorically about quilting and sewing—“If this were a dream, what would it mean?”

Some thoughts:

—Life is like a quilt. Experiences and friends, and choices are the pieces that give us personality—they make up the ‘fabric’ of who we are.

—Sewing is a process of taking those pieces—light and dark, positive and negative, embracing them all, and fitting them together for the best overall effect. Contrasting light and dark colors make the finished product more striking and beautiful.

—Sometimes you have to rip out a seam for a ‘do-over’. The more often you have to do this, the more careful you become—you learn to discern before you bond parts together.

—You have to dream a bit in order to discover the ‘big picture.” You can get easily lost in the million little pieces if you do not keep the larger perspective in mind.

—Complicated things in life are way more get easier and more enjoyable if you get help and don’t go it alone.

—Word play: ‘Sowing’ thoughts, pieces of your heart, ideas, and memories—parts of yourself—and then receiving from others fosters unity and sweetness in relationship.

—A few bucks on fabric and a couple of days cutting and sewing and talking: Amazing results!

So, whether you are a builder, quilter, writer, mother, teacher—you are responsible for piecing parts of life together for yourself and for others. What comes to your mind to add to this ‘quilt of thoughts’?

Sew What?