It’s a testament to my wife, really. She’s so completely immersed in her discipline that it’s pretty much impossible to see where she begins and it ends. My Camille is a productive rhetorician at the cellular level (and for that, her professor Bob Ivie at Indiana University must be busting his buttons). Everything she sees, hears, thinks, says or writes is funnelled first through her rhetorical sense. It’s so fundamental a part of who she is, it’s rubbed off on me. I’m a better thinker, speaker, and writer thanks to her. And isn’t that the best kind of teacher? She’s not teaching by lecturing; she’s teaching by living.
One of the concepts she’s taught me is that of “Quilting Backwards.” To put it in a real-world framework, here’s what an honest-to-goodness quilter has to say about it:
I believe that quilters of today learn to quilt backwards. We learn the rules about quilting BEFORE we quilt. I think we should make some quilts first, then learn the rules later–and only if we want to. My message is a simple one, but I think people like to hear it over and over again: Have fun. Don’t be afraid to be spontaneous. Laugh at your mistakes. Give yourself permission to love your work, even if it isn’t perfect. Understand that if you give a quilt to someone you love, he/she will think of you and cherish it always, even if your points don’t match.
When a rhetorician borrows this term, it’s used to describe the argumentative tendency to arrive at a conclusion before you’ve begun the process of analyzing the evidence in front of you. You already know the result you wish to get, and so you hedge your thought processes so that, regardless of what inconvenient truths you encounter, you’re able to arrive at a conclusion that fits within your predetermined paradigm. It’s obviously not a very sound way to think, but it sure does make life simpler: no messy conundrums to resolve.
Isn’t it interesting how messy a process God’s grace is? It insists that we live our lives in a way that accommodates the inconsistencies in those around us (and Heaven knows, we all have inconsistencies). Romans 14:1-12 speaks directly to that kind of messiness:
Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with—even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently.
For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume he should only be a vegetarian and eat accordingly. But since both are guests at Christ’s table, wouldn’t it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn’t eat? God, after all, invited them both to the table. Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God’s welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.
Or, say, one person thinks that some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other. There are good reasons either way. So, each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience.
What’s important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God’s sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It’s God we are answerable to—all the way from life to death and everything in between—not each other. That’s why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.
So where does that leave you when you criticize a brother? And where does that leave you when you condescend to a sister? I’d say it leaves you looking pretty silly—or worse. Eventually, we’re all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment, facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren’t going to improve your position there one bit. Read it for yourself in Scripture:
“As I live and breathe,” God says,
“every knee will bow before me;
Every tongue will tell the honest truth
that I and only I am God.”
So tend to your knitting. You’ve got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God.
<sarcasm>
Paul came pretty close to warning us away from this same thing, but he missed the mark by using the term “knitting.” That’s really terribly unfortunate. Doesn’t he know that the correct term is “quilting?” Matters of emphasis like these are of vitally paramount importance.
</sarcasm>
