RECLAMATION

Piecing Quilts There is a lot to be learned about life from piecing a quilt. It is only when we stand back and see our lives from a distance of years that we begin to see all the pieces we have been gathering day by day, and piecing into this quilt we call our lives. Every time we open our arms, and allow another person to enter, and Grace our lives, that person brings another living piece to our quilt, a piece of Divine Light enriching, and warming our lives. Quilts comfort us on those long Tristan und Isolde nights. They comfort the body, and they comfort the Soul. They make us feel good, and they make us feel safe. They give us a warm place to fall. Quilts are full of the wonder of our lives lived, made up of so many disparate pieces. All the pieces that we sometimes take for granted, or discard as useless scraps, left-over promises from yesterday, are the essential elements of our lives. They tell us who we are, and they tell us where we've been. Quilts lead us through the night. We are all quilts in the making, piecing together our daily lives. And every once in awhile, it's nice, as Auden, once said, to stop all the clocks, and cut off the telephone, and say, thank-you, to all those who have brought pieces to our quilts. Together we have enriched each others lives with warm smiles, gentle laughter, tender, and enduring friendship, quiet understanding, and such rich, and happy memories, for which we are all ever grateful, and thankful. And on these cold winter nights, of which there will be many more to come, we can close our eyes, and wrap ourselves each in our glorious quilts, and remember the birds singing in the Spring garden, the smell of pink blossoms on the bush, the almost unbearable lightness of laughter, the singeing tears of death, and pain for loved ones gone, but not forgot, the familiar hello of an old friend, the joy of birth, and discovery, the bright new green of Nature’s first Gold, the speckled colors of autumn, and the cool shimmering silver of winter. Our quilts are filled with the Amazing Grace of our lives well lived, the precious warmth of love everlasting, and the soft memories that will bring us yellow roses blooming still in the depths of Winter.