A Love Quilt - Print.

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Do you wrestle with institutional religion but have a desire to encounter God as Divine Love?

This collection of later-life writings integrates deep Christian spiritual experiences of God with sometimes unorthodox thinking on many aspects of love, life, interfaith, race & social issues, and sciences.

Distilled wisdom, from Trish’s 70-year spiritual journey, will encourage and support you on your own journey. Her stories, poems and liturgies will engage you and challenge you to look at your life story and direction.

Trish writes as a post-denominational Christian.

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Trish’s three books – Faith Evolving, Exploring the Presence and A Love Quilt – are being republished in 2024. Read together, they document Trish’s 75-year life and faith journey from childhood to her 80s – a unique longitudinal record of women’s spirituality and thinking. They are both spiritual biography and contextual theology. 

Along the way, Trish moves from a traditional Catholic faith to embracing feminist theology and on into a post-denominational, inclusive, integrated Gospel-centred spirituality. She has used a patchwork metaphor across all three books, connecting writings of many colours, shapes and textures.

Her purpose in all three has been to encourage others to ponder and record their own faith journeys.

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Praise for A Love Quilt

“As an avid reader I find there is a wide diversity of literature that forms, informs and nourishes me as a spiritual director. Works of fiction, spiritual classics, memoirs, emerging biblical scholarship, poetry, theological treatises, process theology, Indigenous studies, current psychology, and eco theology are just a random sample. However, once in a while I come across a book that seems to reflect much of my own spiritual journey, a book I could imagine having written. A Love Quilt: Later Faith Patches by Trish McBride is one such book. It is a pastoral theology work, but not in the academic sense, for it has evolved out of Trish’s rich life experience as a chaplain, counsellor and spiritual director, a life that has been reflected upon with insight and ease.

A Love Quilt: Later Faith Patches is an apt title for McBride’s latest book, the third in what she describes as ‘an accidental trilogy’ recording her spiritual journey for most of the last 70 years. Through this collection of more than sixty ‘patches’, drawing predominantly on the most recent decade of her rich, vibrant and faith-filled life, McBride stiches together a quilt that manifests her passion for social justice, love for accompanying others and her own spiritual journey. The pieces of this quilt incorporate her writings in various contexts. They include sermons preached, liturgies curated, poems composed and previously published articles, collated under themes such as ‘Being Loved’, ‘Love and Creation’, ‘Love and Parish’. There is a moving story of a family reconnection following adoption, a profound story of a devout Muslim woman from Kabul and wonderful examples of radical hospitality. In the story of ‘Sue’s Tooth’ I hear Trish’s cry for justice and her anger at shortsighted bureaucratic decision making.

I see hope and healing being offered as women prisoners are ‘heard into speech’. There are little gems, sewn like sequins into the quilt, such as ‘Encountering Rumi’. I found myself identifying with her painful struggle in her call to priestly ministry and was affirmed as I engaged with her final question ‘Am I a Christian?’ I feel as if I have met and conversed with McBride—sometimes as her directee, sometimes as a director and at other times just as good friends sharing a cuppa’ across the kitchen table. There were times I would have liked a two-way conversation with McBride, inviting her to ‘Tell me more about…’ ‘How was …?’ ‘What did … feel like?’ Her poem ‘Spiritual Direction’ will resonate with many readers of Coolamon journal. Numerous other patches in McBride’s quilt will connect with faith seekers and their companions—interfaith stories, intellectual integrity, Sunday worship congruent with theology, forgiveness, reconciliation, journeys of awareness alongside LGBTI communities and much more.

McBride’s spiritual memoir is set in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, a nation which, from my perspective, has a far greater appreciation of Māori culture than we in Australia have of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and spirituality. One way this manifests itself is the frequent inclusion of the Māori language in her writings. We could learn much from our close neighbours! What became evident as I immersed myself in A Love Quilt was McBride’s own developing understanding and relationship with Indigenous peoples and the land.

Spiritual directors may find A Love Quilt a helpful resource to offer their directees so they may recognise how God, named or unnamed, is present in each and every experience of life. As McBride notes in her introduction, while ‘[a] secondary purpose of it is to document some of Christian thinking in the 2000s… [the] primary purpose… is to encourage you, the reader, to reflect on the happenings and ponderings of your own life, …your own stories of inner and outer journeys.’ McBride’s book has done that for me and could do so for you and your directees. May those who pick up A Love Quilt: Later Faith Patches be invited to engage with their own story, see it filled with divine grace and maybe create their own ‘love quilt’.”

A Love Quilt: Later Faith Patches by Trish McBride
Reviewed by Elizabeth Lee, In Coolamon issue 6: Sept 2022, 
(Australian Network for Spiritual Direction Inc.)

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“This is a work of such richness and spiritual insight… Trish McBride has opened her story and her soul to her readers and enabled us all to profit from her deep understanding of her own pilgrimage. … In many ways Trish’s story is so different from my own, that it was surprising and exciting to discover that her bold experiments, her deep experiences and her explorations have significant benefit even for those of us who have gone in different directions. Peter Lineham, MNZM, Emeritus Professor of History

“…You will find stories that engage you and challenge you to look at your own deep story and most of all you will encounter Love. You will discover her rich poetic voice and her deep commitment to Love.

A Love Quilt: Later Faith Patches gives witness to the power of Divine Love in all its rawness. As Trish shares her many sacred encounters with Divine Love, she draws on her deep experience of life in personal relationships, through creation, community, and social justice.  She shares her journey with us beyond denominational labels, and her evolving understanding of what it means to be Christian about which she says: “It’s so challenging, yet so simple: Love one another as I have loved you!” Dr Bernadette Miles, Co-founder and Director of Kardia Formation P/L, Australia, Member, Coordinating Council of Spiritual Directors International

“The book is arranged in a collection of ‘patches’, which hold true to the title, ‘A Love Quilt’. The theme of each patch talks about Love which is to be found embedded in story, poetry and ponderings. Patch headings include: Love and Creation, Love in Community and Love and Social Justice; all of which are close to the heart of the author.

Within Trish’s central theme of love, comes some refreshing and diverse contexts for example, working alongside mental health consumers; engaging with people of different faiths and ethnicities and those in our community who identify as LGBTI. We find subjects as varied as quantum physics, cosmology, ecology, evolution and interspirituality. Although social justice is the backbone of Trish’s faith in action; contemplation, mysticism and playing with metaphors of the Nameless One, are also essential companions on her journey of love.

Some of this wisdom, shaped through life experience of Trish and others, will bring confirmation to some of us who are often living on the edge of orthodoxy that we were taught in the past. However, the author’s learnings may also bring disquiet. As Trish says, ‘With discomfort comes the necessity to examine our own settled theology which may need some shaking up’. Within our uneasiness comes an invitation to ‘dismantle our tidy jigsaws and incorporate new experiences, insights and understandings’ into our faith matrix. I encourage you to be dismayed and reassured.”  Heather Sangster-Smith, Educator, Advocate, Facilitator

Review by Sande Ramage in Tui Motu InterIslands June 2021

“Trish McBride presents her personal myth as a quilt, symbolic of women hand-stitching their narratives in times when men held the pen to write history in their own image.

Trish’s “love quilt” is a patchwork of explorations across the landscape of her rich and full life. She assembles the patches of her experience – relayed in prose and poetry – stitching them together with the thread of her evolving spiritual life.

I noticed a significant thread of Catholicism, Trish’s original spiritual home, but one which she has relinquished to carry out her spiritual calling. Jesus has remained a constant, now mixing and mingling with the Divine Feminine, dreams and archetypal characters that reveal her individual holy mystery.

Central is “the blessing of Divine Love”, something I find hard to comprehend. But this is Trish’s truth and Divine Love is something which she has experienced in “privileged and astonishing ways.”

Women readers may connect with how Trish developed loving detachment through involvement with Al-Anon, so that she could live well despite problems at home. This surfaces again as she helps women in Arohata Prison find their voice beyond trauma. Male readers might wonder at the courage and creativity women need to excavate their long-buried voices to speak out feminine truth.”

More praise for A Love Quilt

“This is the story of the faith patches that make up the later stages of one woman’s spiritual life. You too may indeed identify with and discover anew, but you will not find this book mundane or prescriptive or even the end of the journey. Trish ends with a brief and beautiful blessing: may her writing bring rich blessing to you and those with whom you share it. Thank you, Trish, for trusting us with the mystery and multi-layered fabric pieces of your later life.” Rev Dr Jenny Dawson from the Foreword

“A quilt is the perfect metaphor for this beautiful patchwork of what the author describes as ‘pieces of my learning and thinking from the last decade.’ As in her earlier volumes, Trish engages the reader in an intimate personal conversation about the spiritual journey.” John Broomfield, Former President, California Institute of Integral Studies

“It’s always a pleasure to learn from Trish’s words and history. And it’s a privilege to have access here to her meditations, experiences and wisdom. If you have the chance, try also to reach her previous books. In each piece, you will hear the voice of the Universe asking you to stop for a bit, reflect and feel its magnificence.” Antonio Lima, Liberation Theologian, Sociologist, Activist, Brazil

“A rich reading experience! This is a wonderfully multifaceted quilt – inspiring, challenging, and thought provoking. All the pieces are sewn together with the continuous thread of love.” Sheila Pritchard, Spiritual director and supervisor

“Trish is an enchanting storyteller who secretly embeds insights and wisdom within, for those who have eyes to see.” Heather Sangster-Smith, Educator, Advocate, Facilitator

About the Author

Trish McBride spent more than 25 years as a lay chaplain in workplaces, a hospice and a mental health context, and is a retired counsellor and spiritual director. Formal studies included an MA (Hons) in Classics, Diploma in Pastoral Ministry, and recognition as an Associate in Christian Ministry (inter-denominational).

Her articles and academic papers have appeared in several periodicals in Aotearoa NZ and elsewhere. She was awarded third prize in The (London) Tablet’s international John Harriott religious journalism competition in 1993, and contributed chapters to five Catholic-based New Zealand theology books by Accent Publications between 2008 and 2016.

These writings have been gathered and supplemented to be the basis of what has now become an accidental trilogy, recording her spiritual journey for most of the last 70 years. Faith Evolving (2005) covered 30 years from the 1970s. Exploring the Presence went backwards, forwards and very widely. And now A Love Quilt covers the last decade. She is passionate about Social Justice, the well-being and stories of women and other marginalised people.

Trish was born in Lancaster, England, emigrated with her family as a child to live in Tauranga, and has lived in Wellington since 1959. She has a large extended family, including 21 precious grandchildren. She was a deeply-involved Catholic until her late 50s, and since 2012 has belonged to St Andrew’s on The Terrace, a Progressive Presbyterian Parish. She enjoys family, nurturing her friendships, reading, swimming, and walking, as well making quilts, three of which have appeared on the covers of her books.

Contents

Foreword
Introduction

• To the Unknown Woman

Being Loved

• Culture Shock
• Strange happenings
• Seeings
• Prayer of relationship: a personal journey
• Reluctance
• Easter Crossing 2000

Love and Creation

• Yatton Park
• Breath
• Wilton Bush
• Kākariki
• Osmosis
• Labyrinth
• The Bush
• In Spring
• Bee
• Learning
• Breakfast meditation
• Higher tide
• Down South
• The Stardust Revolution: The New Story of Our Origin in the Stars

Love and Community

• Spiritual Direction
• A True Story
• Rātana
• Mahboba’s Promise
• Tibetan Journeys
• Encountering Rumi
• Words and Worship
• The Interfaith Journey
• The Pandemic

Love and Social Justice

• Pentecost Prayer
• Being A Neighbour
• Just Peace
• A Closure
• Sue’s Tooth
• Stretching
• Listen, love, respect! Justice for Same-sex Couples
• The Living Wage Movement
• Abortion – A Middle Way?
• Hope and Healing in Prison
• Doing Racial Justice
• A Closer Look at Forgiveness

Love and Parish

• Ordination
• The Anointing
• New Wineskins: Progressive Christianity
• Mysticism and Progressive Christianity
• A New Liturgical Season: Celebrating the Season of Creation
• Storm Reflection
• Humanity Reflection
• Good Friday
• New Year Reflection, 2017
• Light

Ponderings

• Jesus and Evolution
• Musings on Metaphors
• Letting Go
• Bad Back
• Mortality
• Am I a Christian?
• Blessing

Endnotes
Glossary
Bibliography
Periodicals
Websites
Acknowledgements

Click the links for:
3 Print Book set | Faith Evolving Print Book | Exploring the Presence  Print Book | A Love Quilt Print Book |

3 eBook set | Faith Evolving eBooks | Exploring the Presence eBooks | A Love Quilt eBooks