'A' is for Affirmation . . .

 "And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi,

Let me now go to the field,

and glean ears of corn after him

In whose sight I shall find grace.

And she said unto her, Go, my daughter."

Ruth 2:2  KJV

 

‘A is for Affirmation . . .’ a legal declaration made in place of swearing to an oath, especially judicial oaths. A brief bit of Quaker background here for all my non-Quaker friends and family reading this post. Friends with a capital ‘F’ here refers to Quakers. Friends believe that taking an oath implies a double standard of truth, so rather than take an oath most Friends will ‘affirm.’ And for Friends, telling the truth, and telling the truth all the time is very important, going back to their early business practices. OK, now on with this post . . .

 

Our courts require those testifying to swear that what they will say will be the truth. Since Quakers and some non-Quakers, individuals and faith bodies, take issue with swearing an oath, courts in the United States and a few other countries now allow at least Quakers to ‘affirm’ instead of swearing an oath. Most courts will ask those testifying to “swear or affirm to tell the truth,” thus covering Quakers and non-Quakers alike.

 

As I was putting together my thoughts for this post I got into a private Facebook conversation with a good Friend. In the course of that conversation I asked her if she had any ideas for the letter ‘A’ and she replied “Angel food cake and angels???” LOL! I reminded her that I was looking for something Quaker to blog about – her reply “We can think about plain angel food cake-snicker, snicker.” Oh my, what to do with her! But, if you knew this Friend, and some of you do know her, and I expect many of you know her better than I, you’d know that’s the way she is! She then said “Appreciate the humor. Hey, that gives me an idea! What about appreciation?” Well, I did appreciate the humor, and I’ll take it when I can, but for some crazy reason, I seemed to be stuck on blogging about Affirmation.

 

Anyway, getting our conversation and back to affirmation, she said “Affirmation may be a good topic. Do you affirm when you are to take an oath. I do I affirm that I am telling the truth. My yeses are yes and my nos are no.” To which I replied:

 

“Yes I have! I took a case to the Small Claims Court up in _____ Township (in Indianapolis) several years ago – they only asked if we would ‘swear’ to tell the truth. I didn’t . . . the Judge caught that! And he said he wouldn’t hear my case if I didn’t! I told him that it was against my faith to ‘swear!’ He wasn’t very happy with me – nor was the attorney (yep, the other party showed up in Small Claims Court with an attorney!) or the manager/owner of the Indianapolis _______ (insert name of fast food restaurant)! They looked at me really stupid like and I said that as a Quaker I always tell the truth . . . he then asked if I would ‘affirm’ to tell the truth, which I did.” My Friend replied “Good for you!”

 

What I didn’t appreciate was the Judge, Court Officer, the defendants & their attorney and court observers snickering and laughing at me over this. I didn’t find it a bit funny. During the whole proceeding I felt like I wasn’t taken seriously by the Judge or the defendants and their attorney - especially since they showed up without the employees that I had had spoken to at the business the day of the incident. When I asked where those employees were, the manager/owner said he had no idea who they were! Can you believe that?

 

Oh, for those of you who are curious, I had slipped on a large patch of ice (black ice with no way to avoid it) as I stepped out of my van to go inside to get something for lunch. I ended up on my side on the pavement, sustaining some rather nasty bruises on my thigh and breaking my cell phone. I was asking for compensation to replace my cell phone and for pain and suffering. The owner claimed there was no ice in their parking lot, amazing that he would say that . . . after admitting in court that he wasn't at the property that day! Unfortunately, in the end, the Judge dismissed my case, without prejudice.

 

There’s another ‘oath’ that causes concern among Friends, the Oath of the Boy Scouts of America:

 

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

 

Members of Friends Committee on Scouting, an affiliate of Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas, have been engaged in conversations, for several years, over the Boy Scout Oath. Those conversations have been with each other as well as other Friends . . . in person, on the phone, through emails and on our Facebook page. Most Friends are interested in how other Friends deal with this Oath. But, is it really an oath? OR More of a promise that the Scouts (youth members) and Scouters (adult members) are making?

As Clerk, I have also had opportunities to have conversations with the Chair of the BSA Religious Relationship Task Force, made up of representative from various faith bodies - including Quakers, and have asked if BSA could replace the word ‘oath’ with another term that would be less offensive and more acceptable among Friends. So far, nothing has come of that, but I’m not giving up.

 

Throughout all these conversations we’re seeking consensus, but like other issues that have come before us over the years, we haven’t reached a consensus on this issue, yet. There are those who say the oath and those that don’t say the oath.

 

When the thought of including something here about the BSA Oath, one thing that  came to my mind was the conversation between George Fox and William Penn, the one about Penn’s sword. And what spoke the loudest to me was the words George Fox said: “Wear it as long as you can.” I’m not sure why or exactly what that means, in relation to the BSA Oath. Is it that Friends should say it as long as they can OR that we should continue working with the BSA Religious Relationship Task Force for change?

 

So . . . Oath OR Affirm?

 

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Last year I included recipes along with each of my Quaker Alphabet posts, not sure I could carry that on another year, so in 2015 I’m going to include quilt blocks and/or quilts that begin with each letter. I hope this will be of interest to all, and for those of you that don’t know me, or know me well, I have been learning to quilt for some time now . . . and I don’t call myself a quilter, as I don’t believe I’m up to that level yet. So, here I go . . .

 

‘A' is for applique. Applique uses a variety of fabric pieces cut into various sizes and shapes that are affixed to the quilt or quilt block either with hand or machine stitching. In the last five years I’ve made three quilts and one wall hanging/table topper that incorporated appliqued pieces.

 

“It Isn’t Easy Being Green” quilt – hand appliqued. Now of course there’s a story behind this crazy looking frog quilt, which must be shared. In the spring of 2009 I made over 30 stuffed frogs which I donated to Quaker Haven Camp when I went up as a counselor, in June. That fall I began thinking about making a quilt using all the crazy fabrics I used for the frogs. I began looking for a pattern, one that I could use all 29 print fabrics from the frogs – not an easy task considering the really odd assortment of prints I had to work with.

 

In late January of 2010, I was looking through some old quilting magazines I had received that afternoon from my mother-in-law, and as I turned the page in one of those magazines . . . I saw it, the perfect quilt! It was rather late, so the next morning I dug out the bag containing the fabrics I had used to make all those frogs and by mid-afternoon I had all the pieces cut. I spent the next couple of day’s appliqueing the frogs to the solid colored blocks. Once that was done, I laid out all the pieces on the floor, stood back and thought “Yuck!” I wasn’t sure I wanted to go any further with it, but then I thought what have I got to lose? I began sewing the nine-patch blocks together and then added all the little squares around the frog blocks, placing each completed block back in place as it was finished. I didn't like it any better once all the blocks were done. Again I continued on, sewing each row together and then sewing the rows together. Again I stood back and took a look at it – and wasn’t any more impressed with it. What I had envisioned to be a lovely quilt for my bunk at camp was horrible looking. But . . .

 

I went ahead and measured, cut and sewed on the two borders. Laid it out on the floor again and stood back . . . WOW, what a difference the borders made! I was in love with it! Loving the scrappy look of my quilt I decided to sew small strips of all the prints together for the binding. The next year I turned two of the extra appliqued frog blocks into matching pillows. I’m happy to say that my crazy frog quilt is quite the conversation piece when I’m up at camp as a counselor and for USFW Fall Retreats. By the way, ‘It Isn’t Easy Being Green,’ is a song sung by Kermit the Frog . . . and I love Kermit!

 

“Butterfly and Flower” wall hanging/table runner – machine appliqued. I saw this pattern in a quilting magazine and knew I just had to make it! I was able to purchase the exact fabrics used in the sample at a local quilt shop – although I did make a few color substitutions - just because I didn’t care for some of the colors in the original. This also goes up to Quaker Haven Camp with me, a table runner in my cabin – adding a bright splash of color!

 

“Dragonfly Dreams” quilt – for my granddaughter Isabelle. I’m stuck on this one, trying to figure out whether to hand or machine applique all those dragonflies! This was made as a baby shower gift . . . for Isabelle’s big girl bed. I’m still struggling with how to quilt this one – by hand or machine. There will be dragonflies quilted all along the border. I also made a matching pillowcase, thinking about either appliqueing or quilting dragonflies on the cuff.

 

“S’Mitten’s” quilt – hand appliqueing. Members of the quilting/sewing group at my Meeting decided in late 2013 to do a ‘Fat Quarter Challenge.’ That is, we chose a fabric and those who wished to participate paid a couple of dollars and then received a ‘fat quarter’ (18 x 22-inch piece) of that fabric to be used in a project. We were given several months in which to create our projects, using all or part of that fabric in it, and then had a ‘show & tell,’ to share what we had made.

 

Just after New Year’s we had quite a bit of snow, which gave our public school students an unexpected extra week of Christmas vacation. Knowing I was gonna be ‘stuck at home,’ I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to begin working on this project. I remembered seeing a quilt pattern that I wanted to make, so I spent a bit of time looking through my quilting magazines until I found it. Now that I had a pattern, I had to figure out where to use the challenge fabric . . . the sashing (strips of fabric between and around the quilt blocks) seemed the perfect place, darn, the pattern said I’d need 3/8 yard for that and all I had was a fat quarter. Hummmm, OK, let’s see exactly what pieces need to be cut . . . YEAH!!!! I had plenty of the challenge fabric to cut the needed pieces for the sashing’s – even had a strip 2 ½ x 18 inches leftover. That was Monday.

 

Tuesday I went through my fabric stash and picked out the other fabrics, cut all the pieces and fused all the mittens on the blocks. Wednesday I was able to get the whole quilt pieced and sandwiched (layer the quilt top, batting & backing) together. By Thursday I was quilting it – beginning with appliqueing the mittens . . . which continues. I'm planning to sew a button in the gold squares and quilt mittens in the border. The binding is red with tiny white pin dots.