Wondering Presbyterian

You shall put into the ark the covenant that I shall give you. -Exodus 25:16             A few weeks ago I went to a leadership conference at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. One of the workshops I took was a prayer and origami class. The instructor goes to nursing homes and teaches residents how to fold paper into different origami shapes. His testimony is that the more he does this, the more he realizes how calming and focusing the folding of paper can be. In the workshop, he taught us to make a swan, a peace dove, and a box. The box actually gave me the most trouble, so I’ve been working on the box. The instructor is right: once your fingers know what they’re doing, the process of folding paper can be very calming. The time becomes devotional.             I have found the same thing to be true about quilting. As a quilter, sewing becomes a kind of devotional time for me: a space to quiet my mind, think about what I’m doing, and ask God to help me mold whatever anxieties I

The oldest form of theater is the dinner table. It’s got five or six people, new show every night, same players. Good ensemble; the people have worked together a lot. -Michael J Fox             I like to walk around my neighborhood and observe things. Sometimes I listen to music, but most often I don’t because I want to hear the outside world. I especially like walking on sunny days when I can really soak up some extra vitamin D. In the front yard of a house a few streets away from me is a big teal picnic table. It’s in the center of the yard and looks inviting. It looks like the kind of table where family gather and pass plates in a kind of informal communion where iced tea or lemonade is the blood of Christ and burgers or hot dogs are the body. I wonder how many games of chess have been played on that teal picnic table. How many hands have been held, arms stretched across the surface like bridges from one heart to another? Do children color on the table? There must be a story