I’m pretty happy with my project for this second week, but not as pleased as how my first one came out. As I said to Sister Sue this morning, last week’s project was perfect. Everything just came together the way it was meant to, and I continued all week to look at it, and enjoy the connection I had with the board. This one has different elements that ended up relating back to the scripture of the woman who anoints Jesus.

I hadn’t realized it at first, but it is funny how these things work out. I approached the materials with a blank mind; a blank slate. I looked at the items and took what struck my fancy. I wasn’t avoiding anything except maybe the Scrabble tiles. Those give a certain distinction to last week’s board as did the puzzle pieces, which I also avoided.

Everything else was fair game.

We begin in the circle and think back on the readings, discuss a little, and then go immerse ourselves in the materials and see what turns up. What I really noticed today more than last week was the quiet, although I’m sure it was there then as well. There were a few whisperings, a few requests to pass the glue or glue stick, but for the most part, we each spend the time in our own space, choosing our items, and putting them on our boards. As I’ve said before, I like to gather my items and then lay them out on the board, getting a feel for what I’m called to do.

One of the things that I recalled about the woman who anoints Jesus is how independent she was. She didn’t ask permission, either from him or any of the others in the house. She broke open the jar and poured out the oil. When she is admonished for wasting the oil and losing the possible income from it, Jesus defends her. He declares that we will remember her for what she has done this day. It is one of the only times that he talks about remembering someone other than himself.

In my mind, she might have cared what Jesus thought, but she definitely didn’t care what any of the others did. She did what needed to be done at that moment.

That is so often a woman’s prerogative; her thing. We just do. And consequently, it gets done. With apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda, Women, we get the job done.

1. When I began at the first materials table, I planned on only two things: the yellow border and the green rope with beads. Unfortunately, the rope was too thick to slide the beads on, so I had to use a narrower ribbon. My intention was to line the beads, and then attach the rope to be the same length. It turned out that I had cut off too many ends to get the ribbon threaded through, so the rope ended up a bit longer than the ribbon. When I laid it horizontally, it made a smiley face. I did not want a smiley face and I was disappointed and running out of time since I had spent so much threading five effin’ beads!
I turned it ninety degrees, and immediately noticed it made a bow shape. Again with a bow and archery. Sister Sue commented on the change of perspective, and I mentioned that I’m a Sagittarius so bows are kind of my thing.

2. From that point I had already taken the two feathers and wanted them crossed. They don’t glue well, so I stapled them and then added the green straw on top to hide the staples. The straw is not as nice as I would have liked.

3. The old-fashioned Corona typewriter was the perfect picture. I found it in a furniture catalog, and I put the tilted frame around it. I also added a table top organizer which also came from that furniture catalog with mail sticking out, flowers, and with a clock attached. These are some of the things I try to have in my own corner office despite the differences in picture aesthetics and three-dimensional.

4. Originally inside the tilted frame, I took out the wooden flower box of daffodils. They are my favorite flower, and remind me of my spiritual home of Wales.

5. Again, the butterfly wings are for my mother. One wing is the same one I used in the first board, and I plan on using it again if I can find the same one for next week. The green wing was simply because it was green.

6. I added the fabric for no reason other than that they were flowers and for another variety of texture.

7. At this point it was complete, but there was still something missing. I couldn’t figure out what that was when it suddenly hit me: tea! I ran to the retreat center’s kitchen and grabbed one tea bag, opened it up, and sprinkled it on the glue. I patted it down, and shook the excess off. That caused the bow to fall off, and the straw to move around but nothing that couldn’t be corrected. Once that was fixed it was ready for the circle.

**While we were talking about which reading spoke to us, I talked a bit about not thinking about any of them, but the strong woman who anoints Jesus really called out to my subconscious. It wasn’t until at the end, when I was wiping away the excess tea that I related the tea to the expensive oil. Some could say that I wasted the tea – it is both a food and emotional sustenance as well as an expensive commodity, exotic in some places, everyday in others, and the same could be said for the expensive oil that the woman breaks open for Jesus.

Some things are worth the time and the money expended, and when it is time for those things, we will know it.

Tomorrow: Some thoughts in preview of next week’s readings.