“Crazy Quilt” Principal’s Connection September 24, 2007

I love you more than yesterday. Yesterday you really got on my nerves!

I think most of us could consider our families like a big, beautiful patchwork quilt—each different yet stitched together by love and life experiences. Concordia is like that, too. We are different textures: smooth and soft, rough and sturdy, bright and sparkly, subdued and peaceful. If one square gets a bit more worn than others, others are there to hold the quilt together.

Patchwork quilts tell stories. How many women have treasured the work, passing it from generation to generation? The blue patch may have been the pocket of Great-Grandmother’s dress, the tiny square of pink from the blouse of an aunt who died unexpectedly, the little triangles of corduroy from another relative. What transpired in each of our families while the quilt was being pieced together? Were they moving to another part of the country, struggling to survive from day to day, returning from a War?

Family quilts are an affirmation of the past, present, and future. They reassure us with their warmth, and comfort us with memories of hard times that turned out well. For generations mothers and grandmothers have given cherished quilts to their daughters on their wedding days. Quilts symbolize the heritage of home passed on, the fabric and threads of one life continuing into the next.

Sometimes we dream of how we want our family or school quilt to look. We can choose certain colors or patterns or thread and start to work. We know we want it to be something unique and wonderful. But somehow life shuffles everything around. We lose one thing and find another. One piece doesn’t really fit, so another takes its place. The threads get tangled and we have to snip and start over or work the tangles into the design. The quilt we envisioned is not the quilt we hold in our lap. It is turning out differently. The miraculous thing about being a family or a school family is that in the last analysis, we are each dependent on one another and God, woven together by mercy given and mercy received.

Sometimes family seems more like a crazy quilt than a carefully designed patchwork. We learn to love each other better through the crises that shape our lives. Through the odd bits and pieces of our lives, we learn new truths and they stick with us as we grow. We learn things like: the appropriate temperature at home is maintained better by warm hearts than hot heads; a grudge is much too heavy a load for anyone to carry.

The Amish always work a “mistake” into each quilt as a symbol that nothing is perfect. It’s a grand idea that comes from living simply and close to the earth. And their quilts are some of the most highly prized throughout the world. Each one is different. Each one is valuable.

Perhaps if we are capable of creating the warm refuge of a family quilt, at home and at school, we may also have the stuff to spin a cocoon and then make a butterfly. While waiting for heaven, let’s keep putting those pieces together, stitching them carefully with love and kindness into a patchwork that is unique to us and that only we can make.

Next Friday at our school Chapel our student families will be creating a simple quilt to reflect their unique qualities. We are excited about how it will turn out. Dr. Falkner

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,

and all these things will be given to you as well. Matt 6:33