New Testament scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, the Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, wrote an essay roughly twenty years ago titled “The Quilting of Women’s History: Phoebe of Cenchreae” (Schüssler Fiorenza 1987). In this essay she first explored how the history of early Christian women was produced and passed on, then proposed that the work of the historiographer, the writer of history, was not to collect and to present an “objective” account of what really happened. Rather, the historiographer should view his or her task as similar to a “quilt maker fitting together the surviving scraps of historical information into an overall design that gives meaning to the individual pieces” (Schüssler Fiorenza 2014, 339–40).
The image of a quilt maker seems appropriate for the Buller Time blog for a variety of reasons. We obviously do not have all the objective facts that we would like; for example, we think our branch of the family stems from the George Buller (husband of Dina Thoms) line, but we do not know that with any certainty. In that sense, all we have are surviving scraps.
In addition, we clearly have a vested interest in making sense of and finding meaning in our family history, even if it involves uncovering a rogue or two—or discovering that we are actually descended from George Buller’s halfwit brother (again, that’s a joke). Whatever the quilt turns out to be, it will have meaning, significance for us.
Indeed, the very approach of the blog—to explore one tangent thoroughly, then move on to another interesting (to me, at least) area of research—is reminiscent of quilt making, as we create one square after another until we can stitch them all together into a larger, more meaningful design. The notion of quilt making is a good image to keep in mind as we continue to fit together scraps of historical data and sociological background into our family tapestry.
Having thoroughly explored how Mennonite inheritance practices both illumine and give meaning to our family’s history first in Russia and then in the U.S., we are ready to turn our attention to several remarkable documents brought to light by Mennonite historians and researchers whose work we have used with great profit in the past. For now, I leave you with the following teaser: the title of this post.
For a hint at the meaning of the post title, see here. I am collecting the information as thoroughly and writing the posts as quickly as possible. Stay tuned.
The image of a quilt maker seems appropriate for the Buller Time blog for a variety of reasons. We obviously do not have all the objective facts that we would like; for example, we think our branch of the family stems from the George Buller (husband of Dina Thoms) line, but we do not know that with any certainty. In that sense, all we have are surviving scraps.
In addition, we clearly have a vested interest in making sense of and finding meaning in our family history, even if it involves uncovering a rogue or two—or discovering that we are actually descended from George Buller’s halfwit brother (again, that’s a joke). Whatever the quilt turns out to be, it will have meaning, significance for us.
Indeed, the very approach of the blog—to explore one tangent thoroughly, then move on to another interesting (to me, at least) area of research—is reminiscent of quilt making, as we create one square after another until we can stitch them all together into a larger, more meaningful design. The notion of quilt making is a good image to keep in mind as we continue to fit together scraps of historical data and sociological background into our family tapestry.
Having thoroughly explored how Mennonite inheritance practices both illumine and give meaning to our family’s history first in Russia and then in the U.S., we are ready to turn our attention to several remarkable documents brought to light by Mennonite historians and researchers whose work we have used with great profit in the past. For now, I leave you with the following teaser: the title of this post.
For a hint at the meaning of the post title, see here. I am collecting the information as thoroughly and writing the posts as quickly as possible. Stay tuned.
Work Cited
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 1987. “The Quilting of Women’s History: Phoebe of Cenchreae.” Pages 35-49 in Embodied Love: Sensuality and Relationship as Feminist Values. Edited by Paula M. Cooey, Sharon A. Farmer, and Mary Ellen Ross. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987. Repr. as pages 339–50 in Schüssler Fiorenza, Empowering Memory and Movement: Thinking and Working across Borders. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014. The quotation above is from the 2014 edition.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 1987. “The Quilting of Women’s History: Phoebe of Cenchreae.” Pages 35-49 in Embodied Love: Sensuality and Relationship as Feminist Values. Edited by Paula M. Cooey, Sharon A. Farmer, and Mary Ellen Ross. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987. Repr. as pages 339–50 in Schüssler Fiorenza, Empowering Memory and Movement: Thinking and Working across Borders. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014. The quotation above is from the 2014 edition.
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