THE MESSAGE IN THE HEALING QUILT

Brick quilt in
horizontal arrangement

I've long been a fan of the Tony Hillerman Navajo mysteries, featuring Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police. The setting is the U.S. Southwest area known as the Four Corners--where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet. 

One of the attractions of these stories is the interweaving of Navajo culture. Jim Chee yearns to be a hataalii or medicine man. Yet he understands that his job as a policeman is philosophically opposed to the beliefs and practices of a shaman. Chee is a traditional Navajo.

Joe Leaphorn, somewhat older than Chee, is sometimes described as a pragmatic Navajo or an agnostic. His wife was traditional; and though Leaphorn knows the culture's mythology and beliefs, he cannot completely embrace them.

An ongoing theme in the series is Chee's desire to be a shaman--also called a singer--who performs healing ceremonies. Here is the important part of the concept: HEALING is understood to be a restoring of the patient to harmony--returning him/her to the beauty of the Navajo way. In the case of terminal illnesses, restoring the patient to harmony before death can bring peace.

[As an aside: Other ceremonies performed by the shamans are indeed for the curing of certain conditions, such as traumas experienced by military personnel who return to their lives in the Navajo culture; others are for blessing.]

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Many years ago I was introduced to another kind of healing service in the church. It was explained to us that this is not about curing a disease or condition; it is about reconciling the person to God.

Brick quilt in
vertical arrangement

Much as the Navajo longs for a return to harmony, to beauty, the healing service in the church where I worship now achieves the same sense of returning to one's original relationship with God. We might call that harmony. Or beauty.

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About the same time I understood the difference between healing and curing, I discovered people I knew who were facing surgeries or treatments for cancer. And in the convoluted way that our own experiences meet and transform each other and intertwine, the concept of a healing quilt was born.

During my recovery at the hospital after my own surgery for cancer, my youngest daughter brought a quilt she had purchased at an estate sale, and placed it on my bed, to keep me company. She knew my interest in making quilts. She knew my grandmother had made many, many quilts in times past. 

I don't remember what that healing quilt looked like--it seems to live in memory as a blue and white quilt, with some red squares here and there. It had been well-used by its former owner, and had the softness of age.

But I do remember the sense of that quilt being there in the hospital with me for a purpose--just for me--no one else had one like it.

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Since that time, I have made many healing quilts. They're made with love and prayer. They're made especially for one person, often in the colors they love or with which they decorate their homes. If possible, I make the quilt before the person has surgery.

Healing quilts are larger than lap size--usually 50x60 inches. I use three different patterns--a brick design in horizontal rows; a larger brick design in vertical rows; and two-inch strips. 

The healing quilts make no claims to cure illness; rather, they carry a message of love and good wishes and comfort and caring by the maker.

Recent healing quilt for a
friend at church