Flutterbys and Futures

Each week I come into the sanctuary, and my eyes go to the quilts hanging in the chancel. Priscilla Strayer made them — hours of care and creativity we never saw. A quilt is many separate pieces of cloth, each whole on its own, stitched into something larger than they could be alone. When Priscilla made these, she wasn't only making something beautiful to hang on the wall. She was telling the story of who we are, and who we have always been.

And I know that we are a congregation that knows its way around thread. People here quilt, knit, crochet, mend, and make: handwork is in the room every week. So, when we reach for an image to say what this place is, the metaphor is already in our hands: separate strands, separate pieces, pulled and stitched close enough to hold together. Many people, many ideas, many histories, made into one cloth. It is, in its own way, the heart of what the United Church of Christ has always claimed for itself: "That they may all be one." (John 17:21) Not all the same. One.

At our Annual Meeting on February 1, 2026, we voted to build a Justice-Rooted Resilience Hub, taking the pieces of 174 years and stitching them into something new, larger than what came before, with more colors and patterns than before. We don't have a name for it yet; we're still trying some on. But what we're making is becoming clear, even before it is named. Every strong piece in it was cut from cloth we already have: our welcome, our standing-up, our showing-up, our long stubborn refusal to let anyone face hard things alone. This is not a departure from who we've been. These are the strong pieces, gathered up and given a shape, a quilt that will serve others for years to come.

This is a resurrection. It is what we declared in June of 2024. We chose to become a Resurrecting Church, because resurrection has always meant taking what is true and strong and giving it new life in a new body. We are not inventing the cloth from nothing. We are choosing the pieces that are strong and are stitching them into something that can stay together well into the future. A place to support resilience for everyone, not just for us.

And I want to be honest that this kind of stitching brings with it sadness. There are pieces that used to stand on their own, that had their own name, their own beauty, their own people who loved them exactly as they were. Our youth group was one: it had its own life, and now our young people are part of the Salem Youth Collective, woven in with others. That is good, and it is also a loss. To sew a piece into something larger is to ask it to stop being only itself. Something is given up when separate things become one, and it's worth grieving even as we choose it.

Ecclesiastes says there is "a time to tear, and a time to sew" (Ecclesiastes 3:7). We would all rather be on the sewing side of that line. But a quilt is made of both, and some pieces can't make the journey. Some have worn thin or were never going to bear the load. Part of doing this work well is knowing which pieces to set aside, not out of judgment, but out of care for the integrity of the whole. A quilt that tries to keep every scrap is a quilt that comes apart at the seams. Letting some pieces go is how the rest holds.

At the same time, new pieces are being added; people and organizations and ways of working that weren't here before. They bring colors we haven't had. They also bring strength, the kind that comes from being stitched in fresh and tight. The new make the old stronger, and the old give the new somewhere to belong. That's the whole point. Neither could be what it is alone.

Which makes me think about a certain quilt of my own.

Somewhere in my house, in pieces, in a bag, there is a quilt from my childhood. My "flutterby" quilt: pink and white squares with butterflies sewn onto them, made by hand and given to me by a woman I called my aunt, a local antique dealer who knew the worth of old things. It hasn't been a quilt in a long time. It can't be slept under the way it is. Its life now is mostly in my memory.

But I keep the bag because some of the fabric is still good. And I hold onto the hope that one day, I'll take those fragments and make something new out of them, something I can pass on to people I'll never meet, generations not yet known. Not the same quilt. A new one, pieced from what was true in the old and resurrected into new life.

May we bring our pieces and build a quilt that provides warmth, safety, beauty and love to all who seek belonging here.

Pastor Robin