Review by Sande Ramage in
Tui Motu InterIslands June 2021
of A Love Quilt by Trish McBride
“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.”
