1st
TAPESTRY
Today is my 49th birthday and instead of approaching the onset of advancing years with dread, like so many women I know, I feel thankful to have made it this far, since I have narrowly escaped death twice, once in 1983 and the most recent at the end of 2007.
I had decided recently that in gratitude for my life, I would do something new this year and give myself a birthday present, one from the heart, and not one merely purchased from a store, since those given from the heart are always the best.
The other day, I was humming the Carole King tune, ‘Tapestry’, whose lyric represents a life’s decoration of colorful experiences, woven together. It reminded me of a dream I had in my twenties. Now, I do not put stock in every dream, but on a handful of occasions in my life, I have had those that I know were inspired by God to teach me something. This was one of those.
I was taken up and flown above an immense woven tapestry that stretched out as far as I could see. It had multicolored patterns that swirled like the ocean. Somehow the glistening arrangement of the variegated combinations of hues gave the entire cross-stitching movement, imparting even breath and life as well as ineffable beauty. Although I was viewing the scene with a wide angle, at the same time, I could see each individual stitch, and how it connected to the one beside it.
Just then, an enormous gleaming pair of scissors approached the exquisite tapestry and stopped as it reached its destination. An individual looped stitch raised itself up as the razor’s edge of the clippers severed it with a ‘snap’. As I watched the scene, I expected this hand stitched wonder before me to begin to unravel, because I am a woman descended from a long line of talented Maine-born knitters and seamstresses, who have passed down their knowledge and love of handcrafted heirlooms to their daughters and granddaughters.
When I was twelve years old, I spent the summer in Maine with my Mother and three sisters. On one of our many traveling adventures, my Mom, who grew up there, took us to visit ‘Auntie’, my maternal grandmother’s aunt, who was a masterful handcraft artist, a quilter, knitter and the most accomplished homemade yeast bread maker anyone recalls. She was going to make each one of us a knitted blanket for our beds. We spent the day visiting with Auntie choosing yarn afghan colors, eating her homemade bread and hearing stories of the olden days, and I was imprinted in my young woman’s soul with a part of my history, and it was from her and the other Maine women in my life that I learned all that I know about hand sewn goods.
Clipping a stitch, even one stitch, from any tapestry would be a disaster, as anyone who has cut the tag from an outfit and accidentally nicked a stitch in the fabric has discovered. How fast the unraveling begins when that happens, but as I kept watching my dream tapestry, nothing was damaged. Its loveliness was not affected in the least.
Next, I flew to another area of the weaving and observed a magnified area that was moth-eaten, and in this case, the stitches were destroyed, and there was decay and a hole in the needlework.
The following morning when I awoke, I recalled the dream, but knew that the tapestry was not like the one in the Carole King song, representing experiences in a life, but that it signified the people in my life, each stitch a person, each loop, a relationship that completed my entire existence. In my twenties, I just accepted this dream, that it was from God, but didn’t comprehend its full meaning.
Today is my birthday, and as I have lived out many years, the lesson of the dream tapestry has unfolded, as if I have unwrapped it—a present to me on my birthday from a God who loves me. I have come to realize that I am connected, stitch-by-stitch to the people in my life. Each loop is uniquely colored with varying hues that emanate from the innate gifts that shine through their attributes to beautify their surroundings. Each link is a connection that I believe is destined by God and not an accidental encounter, and with love we are knitted together in shared happiness and sorrow, in shouldering joint burdens and in celebrating life’s milestones.
I believe that the gleaming scissors represent those times in life when by divine appointment, people are moved from our lives, not by our choice and I must say, that at the time that this happens, it is not pleasant. In my life, however, on the few occasions this has occurred, after some time has passed and my perspective was changed somewhat, just like that dream tapestry, I have been the better for the change and no permanent damage has resulted.
When it comes to the moth-eaten spots in my life, I attribute those to connections lost, with people I love, due to some unresolved hurt or miscommunication. Those areas can and should be tended to. Whether it is that the busyness of life has caused us to lose contact with those that we love or some conflict has happened which has not resulted in some repair attempt, the result remains—a large hole in my life where there should not be one.
In Maine, quilts are prized family heirlooms handed down through the generations, made from the leftover pieces of fabric from garments that women sewed for their families. Over time, the tops of these quilts wear thin and begin to unravel, but there are some expert sewers, women who with much patience and loving care, who with needle and thread, interlace and catch the hanging threads to secure them to the whole. They prefer to expend their time and effort on this restoration rather than on replacing, because they believe their quilt has intrinsic value, based on the love and memories invested in it.
When it comes to my life tapestry and the people stitched around me, I have learned through my dream and my other life experiences that any effort I expend to lovingly weave those barely hanging on, back into connection to family is worth the price I pay, because these individual loops are the people I love, whose memories I share and whom I am not willing to leave behind, and the bonds that make up the whole contain life in themselves, infusing strength to us all. We are like the New England quilt we pass down to future generations, except that we are full of life.
So, to all of you, linked up with me in this tapestry, I love you more than you know, and wish to love you more than I can imagine at this moment. And to me, happy 49th birthday, from a heart that can finally understand a beautiful colorful tapestry, which is worth more than any present I could buy myself in a store.
“I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery.” Colossians 2:2
