Quilting a Community

You can create a quilt to look pretty or fancy. A show piece. It doesn’t have to be durable and weather the storms. It isn’t created to warm or protect the group. You want it to win prizes so you can feel good about your final goal.

A fancy quilt is cleverly made. All the pieces are cut precisely beforehand, match perfectly, and the design is chosen to make an impression, not necessarily to weather time.

An enduring everyday quilt can be a conglomeration of mismatched pieces chosen because the material is what is at hand. The edges are made to fit as close as possible but the colors might clash or the materials look not to belong together. The colors eventually work, the material is strong and the thread holds it all together. The edges are trimmed to fit, colors and materials are moved to create an item that is durable. Overall, it works.

A lot goes into crafting a quilt. Poor choices lead to unacceptable low quality end product. Each individual item such as threads, material, colors – is paramount to creating a strong long-lasting product. One weak item, piece (link) results in a weak quilt.

A group is only as strong as the weakest link. If a piece of the quilt is chosen just to be showy and not for the ultimate strength of the group, then the group is often weak.

When crafting a quilt even the best of quilters have difficulties. Things get rough. The thread breaks continually. You really need one more square to fit with all the rest, but sadly lack that continuity, smoothness.

Inexperienced quilters don’t always value the quality of the thread that ties the item together. Poor quality thread and uneven stitches don’t create smoothness and strength. The quilt bunches and lacks uniformity. Poor chose of colors mean a color stands out for their “look at me feature” and doesn’t create harmony

Individual pieces of a quilt shouldn’t just stand out. They blend to produce a strong durable outcome. You wouldn’t sew dissention and disharmony into your quilt. You attempt to make the best choices for all quilt materials if you want top quality.

Because a quilt provides comfort for the home; the analogy captures the way community members make a community a home. Creating and crafting a quilt is what happens when various people gather or a group forms; whether it is a booster club, group to raise funds or a board/council to support an idea or represent the whole.

A patchwork quilt of community that is inclusive of all who take a stance and reinforce the seams of this blanket with respect for others, share common values and goals, dedication, understanding of one another’s needs and working together to achieve these goals independent of the color of the binding threads. Each seam acts like an adhesive that sticks to whoever has the courage to offer their patch to the greater creative aspiration.

Community. Real community. It is something that we all innately crave, whether we realize it or not. To be with others who understand, who do not judge but support and encourage.

The term refers to how the United States of America is made up of many different people and cultures. Each one is like a patch on a quilt. Despite being different, each patch is connected to the others and works together for a common goal. Each piece is important but they must be sewed together with tough, yet flexible threads.

Joining a group, organization etc. is similar to creating (crafting) a quilt. With a quilt you can have many goals. It may become tattered at times but one then mends. It can last for generations and generations. Cleaning it will sometimes make it shine a bit more. But cleaning the stains and mending the worn spots or spots that have hurt the quilt is important.

Each piece of a quilt or person of a group must bear their own weight. To be a member to exhibit the brightest colors or showiest material doesn’t make for the strongest end product. Sowing disharmony into a group weakens it and the relationship to the community. Using a thread or square to just be a show piece doesn’t produce a strong unified group.

Members are like pieces of a quilt – what can each person do to strengthen the piece? Not a piece that wants to show off their square. The end product of any quilt or group is to protect and keep warm the (family) or the community. What is done should always be asked – what does the whole quilt need or want, to survive?

Groups are a piece of a community’s quilt. Different colors, various threads, some more showy, some more veiled. They all bear the weight of the community’s strength and can make the community weak or strong depending on how they all interact with each other and with individuals. Working together they produce a strong viable quilt.

We again live in a time of discord. Citizens berate each other if there are difference of opinions. Most of us want to believe that Americans can come together to create a functional whole, just as numerous pieces of fabric can be joined to form a beautiful quilt. We want to believe that we can still pitch in together to accomplish tasks that need to be done, as we did in mobilizing our communities. Take the time and quilt a strong community.