Mormonism was my favorite old quilt. I wrapped myself in it, and it kept me warm as I navigated the world. It was a comfort and shelter I could carry and share. Sometimes I tied it around my neck and it became my cape, or draped it over furniture and it became my fort. Sometimes it was wrapped around poles and was a stretcher to carry a friend to safety.

I didn’t study the threads in terrible detail, but I took comfort in the familiar patterns and felt the love of the hands that stitched the pieces. It wasn’t a possession I prized for it’s beauty, it was beautiful because of all the meanings it held for me.

I never felt compelled to question whether the blanket was the one, true, right blanket for wrapping and caping and forting and loving. I noticed the blankets of others, but couldn’t imagine trading for the practically disposable polyester Christian fleece blankets, or the stiff unfamiliarity of non-Christian blankets, or even that lovely traditional catholic afghan that was clearly far too holy to keep me warm the way I wanted. Don’t even get me started on how terribly wrong the minimalist survival atheist blankets looked. I mean, really? Technically they could shelter fine, but there’s no comfort in it!

But over time I noticed that my blanket wasn’t keeping out the chill like it once had. I started noticing seams that had split, and did my best to repair them. The batting was getting thin, and the fabrics were worn to threads. I knew I could no longer trust it structurally for things like forts and stretchers, so I limited it’s role and no longer tried to pretend it was capable of lending much shelter to others. I was sad, and didn’t want to give up on it. I did minor repairs, but the holes kept coming. I tried supplementing with an extra blanket, but it wasn’t the same. I eventually set about the task of doing a major restoration with new backing and more batting and everything. It didn’t feel right when I was done. I wanted to get the old feel back.

When my quilt stopped functioning, everything became about the quilt. I studied the individual threads. I suddenly spotted the areas of shoddy stitching that had previously gone unnoticed. I was still determined to make it work. I studied the fabrics, trying to puzzle out why there were holes. I even researched the history of this blanket I had always taken for granted, hoping to find hints of how it might be repaired and remind myself why this blanket was so important and meaningful. I needed to remember why it was the one true blanket for me.

But all I found was evidence of how unspecial it actually was. The original blanket was the product of a sweatshop. I still felt the love in the patches and repairs added by my ancestors, but the quilt was suddenly tainted by a realization that it was the product of a sweatshop full of women who worked to the bone to make the most of difficult lives. They were not stitching love into it. They were stitching survival. And the designer who spurred them along was far more in love with himself than any blanket or worker or future blanket owner.

And finally, one day, I spread the blanket on the grass, away from all the others, and I just studied the visible threads. The ancestral repairs, my own desperate repairs, the little spots where I could still see the shoddy stitches of women who were surviving. Now I could see the original design envisioned by the egotistical designer, and I found it rather uninspiring. I still appreciated the beauty of the patches and repairs, and shed tears as I reflected on my own sweet history with it, and shed even more tears as I mourned that it was no longer functioning. I felt angry for generations of pouring love into repairs on a blanket that now felt, to me, unworthy of that love. But I was also conflicted, recognizing that with generations, it had actually become lovely and worthy of love. But it still fell apart, it still required massive repairs, and the massive repairs had now changed the feel so dramatically that it no longer offered the comfort I had once counted on.

I felt all the feels, and then I folded it up and took it home and set it on my shelf. I will always keep it and enjoy touching the history of it and reflecting on its meaning in my own life, but it is no longer my constant companion and comfort. I’m assembling a new quilt, even as I wear it, and that gets interesting sometimes, but I marvel at the privilege of being able to stitch with love. Sometimes I even sneak over to the shelf and delicately extract favorite patches of my Mormon quilt and reuse them in my new quilt.

I don’t know what it will look like when it’s done, but I’m doing my best, and I’m investing in the best materials I can. It’s such a relief to no longer be consumed by damage control on an old quilt. There’s so much joy in piecing together something new.

It turns out I genuinely love quilting.

ADDENDUM:

I posted this to Facebook and an atheist friend very sweetly offered to show me the rich and beautiful quilt of her own atheism, and it stung to realize how dismissive the portrayal was of the blankets of others who have been very influential in my life, and who I hold very dear.

Below is my response to her and, by extension, to others who shelter under other blankets:

Those impressions were written as exaggerations of a very former and superficial perspective. If I plugged Mormonism into the analogy from an outsider’s perspective, it would likely have been a ridiculously impractical and smotheringly oversized down comforter in an 80’s blue goose and cotton lace duvet. With cookie crumbs. Because, cookie. Even back then, I recognized that I was missing an understanding of the lived experience inside the other blankets. How could I not? I was surrounded by people under a rich variety of blankets who I (still) greatly love and respect. The idea that you would happily hunker down under anything less than something rich and beautiful and worthy has always run contrary to everything I know of you. I just had to shed my own blanket (no small task) before I could fully appreciate the experience of taking shelter under the blankets of others, and better understand those blankets for what they are. Now I find myself shamelessly cutting pieces from other’s quilts for use in my own. Compulsive vandal that I have become, I haven’t been able to pass by the visible corners of your own quilt without cutting away at the edges. Maybe we should start a quilt block exchange.