A QUILT NAMED LOVE [M, 6-29-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for These Pandemic Days

A QUILT NAMED LOVE       [M, 6-29-20]

Marsha came to our house last week, to help Helen with a quilt she is making. Marsha is an industrial-strength quilter.

She is the first person in our house since March 14, when she was the last person in our house. Obviously, we are careful who we let in. Better not to ask for admission, unless you’re a really good quilter.

That quilt is 40 years old and still not done. Helen figured if she is ever going to get “grandmother’s flower garden” finished, it was worth taking a chance on Marsha. Besides, Marsha is careful, too, and she’s short, so there isn’t much room for the virus to get onto her.

I was a little surprised. Not that Helen was willing to let Marsha into the house. She likes Marsha. In fact, I suspect the quilting help was just an excuse to have someone besides me to talk to, because Helen is very patient with sewing projects.

When we got engaged, she started knitting me a pair of sox, because that’s what engaged women, and wives, did back then. But she was still a college student, and that’s a fulltime occupation, so the sox were not a high priority. Thus, one of them is two years older than the other. They are great sox, though. Wool. I wear them every winter. One of them is looking sort of tired, though.

This pandemic seems to be a good opportunity for old people to complete projects that kept getting put onto the back burner. There aren’t excuses to put them off, anymore. Young people, they have plenty of excuses for putting off everything, especially if they have children at home all the time. That’s a never-ending “first things first and forget about the rest” life. But not old people. We can’t even go and take care of the kids to provide relief to parents.

But some things are never done, regardless of how much time is available now. Because love is a never-ending, never-completed task, and it’s the one that is primary for us all, old or young. The job of loving is never completed, never totally done. Unless, maybe, there is a quilt named “love.”

John Robert McFarland