When the rain stops after forty days and forty nights, Noah first sends out a raven, then a dove (three times) as scouts, hoping for a time when it will be safe for his family and the animals to disembark the ark. When will the flood be over? The raven flies around and around; we don't know what else it does. The first dove returns to the ark, the second brings back an olive leaf, the third does not return. Later, God sends a rainbow as a promise that humanity will not be wiped out again.
These two connected quilts are inspired by the story of the birds from Noah's ark and that promise. The title is a comment on the biblical story as well as what is happening in the world today. We can feel divisions across many aspects of our lives: loss of friends to arguments and beliefs, as well as misguided social media postings, and misdirected anger, among other things. And it's complicated, complex, and in certain circumstances, nearly impossible to reconcile. We have to hold so many conflicting ideas in our heads at once. We have to find peace within ourselves as well as in the world.
At the end of 40 days, Noah opened the window of the ark he had made and sent out the raven; it went to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth. (8.6-8.7)
Then he sent out the dove to see whether the waters had decreased from the surface of the ground. But the dove could not find a resting place for its foot and returned to him to the ark, for there was water all over the earth. So putting out his hand, he took it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again sent the dove out from the ark. The dove came back to him toward evening, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the waters had decreased on the earth. He waited still another seven days and sent the dove forth; and it did not return to him any more. (8.8-8.12)
When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between G-d and all living creatures, all flesh that is on earth. (8.16)
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