[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Dyeing

I am dyeing in the laundry room, and also in the kitchen. In the laundry 
room are the dye stocks and the paraphernalia; in the kitchen is a large, 
purpose-reserved stainless-steel stockpot in which currently resides an 
ounce of silk fibre, taking on colour.

There are two approaches to dyeing fibre. One, exemplified by the 
master-dyer Deb Menz, starts out to plan a finished product and works out 
the mathematics to achieve that goal: so many units of colour per units of 
fibre, everything controlled and reproducible. Nothing wrong with that, 
especially for those who dye fibres on a comparatively large scale. The 
other, put forward by the _Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook_, takes a 
"wotthehell"  approach. Let's wing it. The results are bound to be 
beautiful. (And in fact, they are.)

Those who know me at all will have no problem deciding which approach  I 
favour.

There's a hot "wotthehell" method and a cold "wotthehell" method, both a 
matter of getting playful. For the hot method, soak silk (with detergent) 
or wool; put the fibre in the dye pot with water to cover and some citric 
acid or vinegar (because protein fibres need acid to accept the dye 
molecules), heat the  liquid up until it's just shy of simmering, and then 
toss dollops of dye in -- I use a bulb baster. If you do it just right, the 
dye gloms onto the fibre and then, when you add a second colour, all sorts 
of interesting and wild things happen with the colour. Yellow overlaid with 
blue turns everything from bronze to turquoise and back again via lapis and 
emerald. For the cold method, lay out your soaked and acidulated fibre on 
plastic wrap, paint it with dyes, fold the wrap over, squoosh the dye 
through the fibre, roll it into a bundle, and nuke it in the microwave 
until the dye sets. Either way, let the fibre cool, wash out any unattached 
dye, and dry.

I have to wonder (as I'm which way God's working: controlled 
aim-for-the-bull's-eye or buckshot "let's play and work with the 
results".  I know many Christians who believe the former: that God has all 
things planned according to God's purposes, even if that sometimes seems 
difficult to take.  Process theology, on the other hand, holds that God's 
working it out as it goes, working hand in hand with Creation (humankind 
most especially included), which participates in the process.

But that's another one of those either-or things, isn't it? I've been 
trying to back away from either-ors in the last while, looking instead for 
both-ands -- a more Hebrew and less Greek way of working.

What if it's both? What if God does indeed have a definite final product in 
mind, but the details are at least somewhat improvisational? Rather like 
good jazz, in fact.

I like this for several reasons. It allows for things like freedom and 
contingency, which we need to explain the world as we see it -- why, for 
example, the panda's "thumb" is actually jury-rigged from a wristbone 
instead of being an actual thumb. It gives space for the free will that we 
see, sometimes so painfully, in action. It leaves room for the outliers, 
the data that don't fit. It lets mystery play in the interstices of 
Creation where science would just as soon not go.

It gives us responsibility. If God has everything preplanned and is totally 
in control, doesn't that let us off the hook? Instead of saying "the devil 
made me do it," when we've committed some wrong, we can say, "God planned 
for me do it, and besides, it's in God's plan for you." Well, no it wasn't. 
God's plan for all of us is for us to lead joyous, fulfilling, 
soul-building lives, full of love for God and each other; we often choose 
to operate differently, and God leaves us free to make that choice. Back to 
improv.

I have to have faith that God does know what the outcome will be and that 
the outcome will be far better than I can currently ask or imagine. 
Sometimes that faith seems to be just barely out of reach, when life is 
bing Like That, but I keep flailing about for a handhold.

The last lot of silk looks a whole lot more like cooked spinach than it 
does like the peacocky colourway I intended, but what the hell. It should 
spin up just fine. I'll simply use it for a different project.