The pattern in the fabric

Last year we got a new bedspread with matching pillow shams and little pillows that sit in front.

To me this was a big deal. Our bedroom was comfortable but drab. Too much beige and stark white.

Now our walls are pale yellow and the bathroom is “crab bisque,” a wonderful salmony color that brightens my day every time I walk in there.

The bedspread is yellow with salmon tones and touches of dark red. It has a kind of paisley pattern with things that look like big buds just opening.

Every time Lowell made the bed he’d place the little pillows with the buds drooping down. I thought they should point up. “Upside down,” I’d say.

He’d look at me like maybe he thought I had more important things to worry about.

For weeks I tried to ignore this. But it still bugged me. So on the days he made the bed I’d scuttle along behind and turn those pillows the “right” way.

Then one day I looked hard at the pattern. The shams and bedspread had the buds drooping down. Was he making the little pillows match? Startled, I had to step back and think.

Now, the most obvious thing about our pillow patterns is that they matter not at all in the great sweep of life.

It’s just that, after living with a nondescript bedroom, I care that it’s pleasant.

And while being totally convinced I was right, I was altogether wrong.

I had to say it. “I was wrong.”

And there’s the rub. It’s so easy to look at patterns in all kinds of things — in family life, neighborhoods, cities, states, nations or the world — and think things are crystal clear, plain as the nose on your face. Who could miss it?

Oh, blissful certainty, how wonderful it is. No doubts or second thoughts.

Except that there always is the next look, and maybe the flash of insight that says, “Whoa, could I be wrong about that?”

When I was young, I thought I wasn’t allowed to make mistakes, and admitting mistakes was a sign of weakness. For years my insides burned with accumulated errors and dumb decisions that I was afraid to admit, even to myself.

“I’m doing the best I can,” I told myself. That settled it. No need to look again, no need to face up to it.

Then God called me back to the church and I began a love affair with my faith. Little by little, God insisted that I own up, go deeper and look at the things I feared.

I’m several layers down now. Lots of old stuff cleared away. I’ve discovered what a frightened child I was, so afraid of being rejected and unloved.

Easily admitting my mistake about the pattern in our pillows might seem like a little thing. But 30 years ago I couldn’t have done it.

Now I’m searching harder for that frightened child. I wonder what else she has to teach me.

Joan Uda is a retired United Methodist minister who lives in Helena. Her e-mail address is joanuda@yahoo.com.