Q—Quadrivium (Crossroads)

Today I experienced a quadrivium!

Quadrivium* : an old word for a crossroads, literally a place where four roads meet. A place where three roads meet, incidentally, is a trivium. (A quadrivium was also a course offered at medieval universities, in which students learned the four “mathematical arts”: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.)

**Latin, literally ‘the place where four roads meet’ (in late Latin ‘the four branches of mathematics’), from quadri- ‘four’ + via ‘road’. 

I was at the house of a friend who leads a prayer group online. (She is a quad-plus-trivium herself, but that's another story!) I shared the link to her prayer group as we started, and a friend from Wisconsin happened to join. She told me privately, "I got your name in prayer and then the Word GRIT over and over...like new grit I saw.... Bless you!!!"

grit** /ɡrit/ (noun)

1 : small loose particles of stone or sand.

2 : courage and resolve; strength of character.

(verb) : move with or make a grating sound.

As I read her words, I also felt the Holy Spirit nudge me to spend time with the word grit and that it connected with the word grid as well. Because I'm a nerd, I also checked Merriam-Webster and found that I liked the additional elements of their definition: 

4*** : firmness of mind or spirit : unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger

What a joy to have God drop me into the heart of a praying person! To have that person be one with several connections is extra special, and I initially didn't realize how many connections we had! I received that word gladly, even though it may carry an element of warning that I will need grit to get through a difficult time. But hey, difficult times have been par for the course, so that's nothing new!

Before I sat down to share with my friend that I was going to dig into that word a bit, I shared what the Holy Spirit nudged me about. She surprised me by saying, "I saw grid too, but grit came out in tongues." What?! How cool is that?

grid** /ɡrid/ (noun)

1 : a framework of spaced bars that are parallel to or cross each other; a grating.

2 : a network of lines that cross each other to form a series of squares or rectangles.

(verb) : put into or set out as a grid.

As soon as I looked up grid, I remembered sparks of revelation involving a blueprint like a sieve that lifted up out of sand. As it rose, most _____ (I asked Google what a word was for small particles of sand. It replied: Grit. LOL) ... so most grit fell through the open spaces, and what remained was the pattern of the blueprint on the grid, so to speak. It was more than a grid shape. It was a personalized pattern and path that was revealed with the sifting and shaking. I knew as it rose that the blueprint contained not just my own design but the connections and intersections of others.

The blueprint moments were several and it's still a word that perks me up when it comes by the Spirit. Now I want to sort through journals and find them. I think I even marked some as things began to shift 10 years ago. Now just the time to find them! This is a good spark for me to remember and start to schedule time for things like these (researching my own spiritual growth).

While these words grit and grid floated through my mind, I was surprised to see this on social media: 

@chaseJarvis and he seems to have a lot to say about GRIT!

Now back to quadrivium for the Q-word of the day.

As conversation continued, this friend turned out to have more connections than I originally knew! We are connected through a ministry organization started by my aunt and uncle, Association of Faith Churches and Ministries. With the live group I shared, we discovered a resonance regarding prayer. As we continued to chat, not only was there the Spirit moment with grid and grit, but to strengthen the prayer side, she learned to pray at my original church in Minneapolis, Living Word Christian Center, and specifically sat under the prayer leader at the time, who is now the husband of the online prayer group leader whose link I shared! So my friend learned to pray and to lead prayer there, and I was also there (I think earlier) and am only now reconnecting with all these people with original roots in the same place!

It is amazing to me how roads once traveled can intersect once again. And for that I am immensely grateful!

*"quadrivium." Mental Floss. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/64012/40-quirky-q-words-add-your-vocabulary (20 April2025)

**Per Oxford Languages via Google. (20 April 2025)

***Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “grit,” accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grit.

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