The Tapestry

On Pentecost, 1978, a twelve-panel needlepoint tapestry, symbolizing significant features and events in the life of our church, was dedicated.  The project was conceived and designed by Kathleen Grandjean, who was assisted in its creation by 21 others.  It hung for many years in the old sanctuary, and was recently restored and hung in the narthex.  At the time, Kathleen wrote, in part:

On the far left, the first panel depicts the church with a river of life flowing into the next section, symbolizing our congregation’s concern for and work in the community.  The theme of the third panel is the music life of the church, represented by the notes of “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love.”  The fourth part recreates our celebration of our nation’s two-hundredth birthday (1976).  The next section deals with the birth of Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, and his resurrection as symbolized by a butterfly.  The sixth panel treats the construction of the playground as one project out of many which shows the spirit of the congregation working together with a common purpose.  The unicorn represents the opportunities for a child’s creative imagination that the playground provides.

The second half of the tapestry begins with God’s creatures, great and small, gathering beneath the Tree of Life to find renewal as we join in love and fellowship at Northridge.  The eighth’s section topic is children and youth, serving to remind us of our responsibility to guide our young ones in their spiritual mental growth, preparing them to assume positions of leadership in our church, our society, and God’s greater community.  The ninth panel is in memory of special people who have played a large part in the life of the church and are no longer with us.  The quote is from the book, God Is a Verb, by Marilee Zdenek, and states, we feel, the courage the Linda Oliver (Kay Cox’s younger daughter, who had leukemia), showed us as she handled the challenges of her life .  The home and family occupy a central position in this half of the tapestry, and in the lives of church members.  Northridge’s own way of serving communion, with the passing of the peace as symbolized by a detail from Michelangelo’s “The Creation,” is the theme of the eleventh piece.  The final panel features the church camping group as examples of the church family enjoying fellowship and recreation in a beautiful land of which we are all stewards.  The water, which flowed from the first two panels, reappears in the last two, unifying the various aspects of church life depicted in the entire tapestry.