When our Dave was in middle school, he started reading Stephen Hawking, about time.
Truth… I didn’t read much of it. (I was planting a church!)
At the time, all that research seemed to have a lot to do with convincing me that his homework couldn’t possibly be late because time didn’t exist!
(If you’ve ever been a nurse, this may seem as hard to wrap your head around as it did to me…)
Oddly, I feel kind of like that in this moment. (Whatever moment means!)
You see, there’s a whole lot of stuff from different decades of me, playing bumper cars in my head, becoming something new.
As we go on, it would help if you’d use your imagination, please…
You are sitting in a chair, looking at a cooperative red leather sofa with quilt fabric strung all over the back of it, trying to figure out how it will all fit together into – you know – a quilt. (The liberated kind!)
I spent a lot of time, back in the day, doing just that. Stare a while. Move a piece and stare some more. Repeat until all of me went ahhhhhhhh…. And, only then, start cutting and sewing!
These days, that tends to happen more with paint.
Yesterday, The Legendary Husband and I took the new piece who christened herself Revelation! off to hang with my friend Barry at the place known as Scan Camp. (Read that, magic I don’t understand which results in extremely high quality images and takes long enough for me to get homesick for the new creation.)
It turns out, though, that she’s only elsewhere geographically!
You see, I’m writing a chapter for a book project which will be known as turningpoint2 and all the things I learned painting Revelation! clamored to be invited into print.
Hence the bumper car bit going on in my head. Or, perhaps more accurately, in my being!
For better or worse, the external stuff keeps going on, too. And I am coping by rationing my news time!
And by hatching ways to share what I learned at my easel with my corner of the world.
Which does, indeed, feel awe-some, in the way that spring time and mountains and new babies do!
Meanwhile, my various layers of consciousness seem to be quilting. Here are a few of the scraps, summoned from beyond…
First, an old Facebook post. Words from one of my favorite teachers, Walter Brueggemann:
There is no final reading of the text. We will always read it again, and it will always take us somewhere else.
Turns out, Uncle Walter was way more right than I realized!
And, kind of obviously – for this moment – a thought from my time at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Brace yourself…
We get to choose our beliefs!
All of which calls for big doses of integration, with thanks to a Facebook person I don’t know:
Along with all the growth and healing, remember to give yourself time for integration, which is a fancy word for “ALLOWING SHIT to SETTLE.” It looks like doing nothing. This nothing is NECESSARY! – Emily McDowell
I can’t wait to hear what comes up for you as you ponder your “quilt” pieces! suesvoice@gmail.com
For this moment, the last words go to Dave’s hero, Stephen Hawking:
Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet!
ps… the painting at the top is known as She Takes Her Place Among the Matriarchs. I’m pretty sure this is what reading again & choosing & integration look like!
pps… need a reminder? Put your cuppa to work! You matter!
