SOWING AND REAPING
Joseph Pearce said, “Our creative impulses are love's desire for expression.” Love: a name for the divine, for God. A God who knows us, who 'is familiar with all our ways.'. A God who inspires us, nudges us, encourages us to reveal the nature of God's love through our thoughts, our words and our actions.
Have you ever had the experience where you have done something for one reason, only to find days, weeks, years later, that this experience was the foundation, the fertile ground, for something else?
I trained as a teacher and worked for several years with young people who were intellectually disabled. This was both a rich and a humbling experience. My son has Autism Spectrum Disorder. I am now able to
reap from that training and lived experience to accompany him through life. A heartfelt gift from a God who loves us both deeply.
I have always loved textiles, learning to stitch and sew both at home and at school. I made soft toys as an adolescent, selling them for pocket-money. In the main, I set aside these skills until about ten years ago when I rediscovered doll-making as a healing therapy, a transformative experience. For me, they are a means of giving voice to the inexplicable. The dolls are an outward expression of a hidden, silent, unrevealed inward journey.
In 2007, and again 2010, my daughter and I put together an exhibition, 'In The Pink', in support of Breast Cancer Awareness. The textile art and dolls touched people in many ways: ways that had never
occurred to me as I made them.
'Terri and Francie: friends for the journey' encouraged women who are caregivers and companions, to bravely 'walk the walk'. Terri sowed these seeds in her selfless act to give up her full-time job and care for her best friend during her cancer treatment. Her story and Love's desire now empowers people in different ways.
'Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?'touched a woman facing significant changes in her life. The first crocheted rosary had been made to remember Fr. Mychal Judge, a Franciscan priest, who was the first
official casualty of the collapse of the World Trade Centre in New York. Love's desire for healing revealed.
A three circuit labyrinth, made up of 190 knitted breasts, provided a contemplative experience. The labyrinth had taken over a year to create, a meditation in itself. One woman walked to the centre
and out again, mindfully, meditatively, calling to mind all those who live and die from breast cancer. A short while later, she was herself diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. She told me how her experience walking the labyrinth had somehow prepared her for the journey she was about to undertake. Her walking the labyrinth had been fertile ground. Love strengthened her.
We never know how the things we do, or say, or participate in, will be the fertile ground 'where they bring forth grain, some a hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty,' for our selves, for our families, for fellow pilgrims, or complete strangers. Hopefully, we will always prepare the soil and sow the seeds when and where the Spirit desires, and graciously reap when that same Spirit leads us to the harvest.
Hopefully, we will always give expression to Love's desire.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Batten, Juliet Growing Into Wisdom
Sacred Scripture Matthew 13
Psalm 139
Have you ever had the experience where you have done something for one reason, only to find days, weeks, years later, that this experience was the foundation, the fertile ground, for something else?
I trained as a teacher and worked for several years with young people who were intellectually disabled. This was both a rich and a humbling experience. My son has Autism Spectrum Disorder. I am now able to
reap from that training and lived experience to accompany him through life. A heartfelt gift from a God who loves us both deeply.
I have always loved textiles, learning to stitch and sew both at home and at school. I made soft toys as an adolescent, selling them for pocket-money. In the main, I set aside these skills until about ten years ago when I rediscovered doll-making as a healing therapy, a transformative experience. For me, they are a means of giving voice to the inexplicable. The dolls are an outward expression of a hidden, silent, unrevealed inward journey.
In 2007, and again 2010, my daughter and I put together an exhibition, 'In The Pink', in support of Breast Cancer Awareness. The textile art and dolls touched people in many ways: ways that had never
occurred to me as I made them.
'Terri and Francie: friends for the journey' encouraged women who are caregivers and companions, to bravely 'walk the walk'. Terri sowed these seeds in her selfless act to give up her full-time job and care for her best friend during her cancer treatment. Her story and Love's desire now empowers people in different ways.
'Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?'touched a woman facing significant changes in her life. The first crocheted rosary had been made to remember Fr. Mychal Judge, a Franciscan priest, who was the first
official casualty of the collapse of the World Trade Centre in New York. Love's desire for healing revealed.
A three circuit labyrinth, made up of 190 knitted breasts, provided a contemplative experience. The labyrinth had taken over a year to create, a meditation in itself. One woman walked to the centre
and out again, mindfully, meditatively, calling to mind all those who live and die from breast cancer. A short while later, she was herself diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. She told me how her experience walking the labyrinth had somehow prepared her for the journey she was about to undertake. Her walking the labyrinth had been fertile ground. Love strengthened her.
We never know how the things we do, or say, or participate in, will be the fertile ground 'where they bring forth grain, some a hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty,' for our selves, for our families, for fellow pilgrims, or complete strangers. Hopefully, we will always prepare the soil and sow the seeds when and where the Spirit desires, and graciously reap when that same Spirit leads us to the harvest.
Hopefully, we will always give expression to Love's desire.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Batten, Juliet Growing Into Wisdom
Sacred Scripture Matthew 13
Psalm 139
