Palm Sunday, Again

Today churches across Christendom will celebrate Palm Sunday, the day when Jesus rides triumphantly into Jerusalem.  Of course, the same crowd that cheers for Jesus will just a few days later be screaming for his death.  Many churches will cover the whole Holy Week story today:  Palm Sunday has become Passion Sunday.  Here are some thoughts swirling in my brain this particular Palm Sunday:

--Palm Sunday shows us the folly of fame.  People may love you on one day and cry out for your crucifixion 5 days later.

--Spring, however, reminds us that the days of winter will not last forever. 

--Does every religion have a cycle of days that reminds humans that resurrection is not only possible but promised?  I think so.

--Spring also reminds me that the shrubbery/trees that don't bloom brightly one year might be shining in a future year.  Spring reminds me not to give up.

--The Palm/Passion story reminds me that it's not about me, that we're characters in a larger narrative (as does the Passover story, which people across the world will be hearing this week too, in some Christian traditions, and next month, in the Jewish tradition).  We will find ourselves in great danger if we start to believe it's all about us, personally.

--I find many values to being part of a religious tradition, but the constant reminder of the larger vision, the larger mission, is one of the most valuable to me.  The world tells me that many things are important:  fame, money, famous/rich people, a big house, a swell car, loads of stuff.  My religious tradition reminds me of the moth-eaten nature of these things that the world would have me believe is important.  My religious tradition reminds me of the importance of the larger vision.  And happily, my religious tradition is expansive enough that my creative work can be part of that larger vision.

--Spring shows us that many types of work can contribute to the garden.  That, too, is an important message for me right now.

--I went looking for a good Palm Sunday poem that I've written, but time is short, and I can't find one.  Instead, let me direct you to this poem by Mary Oliver.

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."

Annunciation and Other Callings

Today is the feast day of the Annunciation, the religious holiday that celebrates the day that the angel Gabriel appears to Mary and hails her as the chosen one.  She says yes to God's offer to be the mother of the Messiah.  

You may be saying, "Wait, this isn't your theology blog."  Very true--for a more traditional approach to this feast day, head on over to my theology blog to read this post.

Today, even though it's the first day of Quilt Camp, I'll head down the mountain to do a day of teaching.  It makes sense in one way, but it's leaving me exhausted in other ways.

I've done this to myself.  I knew that my March and April would be very crowded.  All those self-help gurus talk about saying no to invitations, but I find it hard to say no to things I want to do.  My March and April are crowded with things that bring me joy and delight.

Last night I spread out fabrics, but just felt a bit overwhelmed.  I tried to remember that I always feel this way on the first night of Quilt Camp.

Let me record a few other things, while I'm trying to gather my scattered fragments of attention:

--Now that I've told my Candidacy Committee contacts at the Florida-Bahamas Synod, I can talk about it here:  one week ago, I was offered a tenure track position at Spartanburg Methodist College, and I accepted.  I am still floating on air.  I am happy beyond belief at this promotion.

--This morning, I have a Zoom session with those contacts.  I continue to hope that I can find a way to be bi-vocational.  This particular tenure track job could make it easier to do just that.  The Church needs more people who can work part-time.

--I keep wanting to create a poem out of these strands:  Annunciation, teaching job promotion, Quilt Camp.  O.K., subconscious brain, get weaving!

Energy of All Sorts

There was a moment earlier today when I got an idea for a poem, and then I thought, wait, it's almost the end of March.  I haven't written any rough drafts, and I haven't polished any rough drafts.  There was a moment during Spring Break when I pulled up three rough drafts intending to work on them, but then I didn't.

I always forget how much energy travel takes:  both the literal kind, like the gas used to make the car move and my own energy, both to get ready to go and the driving and the return and putting it all away.  Travel might give me some inspirations for future poems, but it doesn't do much for poetry writing or revising in the moment.

This March travel time is odder than most because I've gotten back from one trip almost immediately to leave on another.  This week, I've returned just in time for Quilt Camp, a three minute trip up the hill to Lutheridge.

My travel is impacting Quilt Camp too--I don't feel good being away for 2 weeks at a time, so I'm going to teach today and tomorrow.  Thursday morning I need to be here, doing my Lutheran Confessions class.

This morning I go for my yearly mammogram, and I found myself trying to remember if I'm allowed to have breakfast.  I thought about the pre-reqs for bloodwork and for a colonoscopy, both of which might require fasting.  I thought about all the markers that a urine sample can discover.  I wondered if I had the workings of a poem.  

Earlier this morning, I thought I did.  Now I'm not so sure.  But here's the first stanza, as it is right now:

In the hours before my mammogram,
I try to remember the rules
for this particular scan.
Can I eat breakfast?

Wedding Season Begins

It was a beautiful wedding.  I took no pictures because I wanted to travel light, the way I did when I was a girl with just a credit card and a lipstick in my pocket.  I left the credit card behind, but I did take the hotel room key and my driver's license, even though we were riding on chartered vans and wouldn't have to drive.  Before September 11, 2001, I went a lot of places without my license, which I left in the car so I wouldn't be without it when I drove.  But that event was the beginning of the surveillance state in which we find ourselves now.

But that's not a happy turn of paragraph.  That paragraph doesn't do much to support the topic sentence.  I have no pictures to prove the topic sentence, and I don't want to spend too much time on describing in words.  The bride and groom were beautiful, but I don't think I've ever seen a non-beautiful bride and groom.  They pledged their love and support, slipped rings on each other's fingers, and then we celebrated the rest of the evening.

I am intrigued by urban and non-traditional spaces that transform themselves into celebration venues.  My sister's wedding reception was at The Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, which was once a torpedo factory but is now artist spaces and celebration areas.  Last night's event was at an old train depot, right under an interstate highway.  It worked.

The food was sumptuous, the drinks free flowing, the music loud.  I couldn't do this every night, but I was glad to be there last night.

Most years, wedding seasons come and go, and no one I know gets married.  This year, we have two family weddings, just like we did a few decades ago, when my cousin got married in early Spring and my sister in late Spring.  Then, as now, there was a war in the Middle East.  Then, as now, we celebrated love despite a world that seems intent on coming apart faster than we can patch it back together again.

Then, as now, I think that love is the only way we patch this world back together again. 

Atlanta and Me

Atlanta is famous for its horrible traffic, and yesterday's traffic was horrible, just as we expected.  The worst part was some side streets which had cars parked on either side of the street, a 2 way street, which barely left room for one car to drive through.  Yikes!

Happily, we made it through and got to the hotel in Midtown Atlanta.  The car is parked in a garage, and we will not be moving it until we leave.  Last night, we walked down to South City Kitchen for dinner--what amazingly good food, drinks, and service!

As we walked back, I looked at the huge skyscrapers and thought about my connection to this city.  My earliest memories are of Atlanta and theatre.  In 1972 or so, we came to Atlanta to see Godspell, a life changing event even when I was 7--that play shaped my theology and that trip to Atlanta made me see big cities as thrilling, not scary.  In 1978, when I was 13, we came to Atlanta to see A Chorus Line and to shop for some Scandinavian furniture to go with what my mom and dad had bought when they were stationed overseas in France in the 60's.

We lived in Montgomery, Alabama, and when we would drive to see my grandparents in South Carolina, Atlanta was an unmissable landmark with buildings bigger than any in any other Southern city, a statement no longer true.  Later, in my undergraduate years, I would go to Atlanta or drive through Atlanta periodically.  I loved Atlanta and my Georgia Tech friends so much that I thought about going to grad school in Atlanta.  But instead, I went to the University of South Carolina, a choice I don't regret.

I remember coming to Atlanta in 1997 to see an exhibit at the High Museum, the first time I ever saw Pre-Raphaelite paintings, the real ones, not pictures of them in books--amazing.  I left and bought my first set of paints and brushes from Pearl, a local-ish art supply place (only later did I realize it was a chain when I moved to South Florida).

My fondest memories are of Charis Books, a feminist bookstore that is still in business, a happy surprise.  But I will not be going there today--the wedding week-end logistics don't allow for many other activities, but that's O.K.  It's good to see relatives we don't get to see often, and good to have a happy occasion to bring us together.  I am aware that in future years, it will be more likely to be a funeral that draws us near.

But let me not think about that today.  Let me marvel in this city, which 1980's Kristin would not recognize.  That girl could make her way through the city in her 1974 Monte Carlo without breaking a sweat.  I remind myself that she was younger and more foolhardy, and the city wasn't as crowded then as it is now.  Let me enjoy this time out of time, an experience that has always been quintessential Atlanta for me.