fashioning a Christian ethic of clothing
Blessed are the timid hearts that evil hate that quail in its shadow, and yet shut the gate; that seek no parley, and in guarded room, though small and bate, upon a clumsy loom weave tissues gilded by the far-off day hoped and believed in under Shadow's sway. Blessed are the men of Noah's race… Continue reading Texts & Textiles: JRR Tolkien
She who reconciles the ill-matched threads of her life, and weaves them gratefully into a single cloth— it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall and clears it for a different celebration where the one guest is you. In the softness of evening it's You she receives. You are the partner of her loneliness,… Continue reading Texts & Textiles: Rainer Maria Rilke
Although the image of the "Proverbs 31 woman" has been tarnished by narrow exegesis and mediocre women's conferences, it remains a powerful and challenging picture of a productive, joyful, generous life.
Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire. Eliot, T.S. "Little Gidding." Four Quartets. London: Faber & Faber, 1943. IV.
Make me, O Lord, thy Spining Wheele compleate. Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee. Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neate And make my Soule thy holy Spoole to bee. My Conversation make to be thy Reele And reele the yarn thereon spun of thy Wheele. Make me thy Loome then, knit therein… Continue reading Texts & Textiles: Edward Taylor
under the stonesmith’s hand / stone turns into lace. I need his hand now.
"And if the serpent comes again / to tempt with secret truths, /hold fast your crafts, / in them you'll find a better mystery."
