[SB] (no subject)

[Molly Wolf]

Silk

I missed church this morning. I spent the time sitting with eight other
women in a long, shabby upstairs rooms, our wheels humming as we spun
silk.

The workshop started yesterday morning. We untwirled the extraordinary
fibres from red-dyed coocoons and reeled it; we de-gummed more cocoons and
spread the fibre into squares, called hankies. We tried noils and top,
caps and ready-made hankies, bombyx and tussah and even waste culled from
Chinese machines. We blended silk with other fibres and wooled around with
them too. And as always, there was good chat.

Playing hooky from church was actually the best thing I could have done
for my soul today. I've been working hard lately at prayer, but as so
often seems to befall me, I'm not finding any answers, and none on the
horizon, really. It gets terribly discouraging sometimes. I'm not asking
for anything huge or miraculous -- just for work to come in, instead of
hovering just barely out of reach, where it's been for longer than I like
to think about. I should be grateful that it's not an issue of financial
desperation, but I miss working so badly. (It's January, it's grey and
cold, and that's probably a major part of the picture.)

My neck-upward faith, as always, keeps on chugging steadily along. My
theology remains sturdy, and I could put up a good, solid, logical
argument against mere January doubt. It's the neck-down faith that waxes
and wanes so much, depending on how life is going -- that is, whether it's
going the way I want it to or the way it usually seems to go.

And sometimes, the neck-down faith seems to fall right down in a sloppy
muddle around my feet, and I sigh, and say to God, "Look, I'm going to
assume that you know where I'm coming from and why I'm in this state of
mind; can you forgive me, please? This isn't what I want. You know that."
This isn't apostacy; it's mild situational-seasonal depression, and I
think I can trust God to understand.

The one comfort in this grey state of spirit is the knowledge that others
know this territory at least as well as I do, and the company is good,
like the company of spinners. We've learned not to beat up on ourselves
for being here; we've also learned to wait it out. January's three parts
done, after all.

Toward the morning's end Beth, our instructor, handed out a fibre I'd
never tried before, a blend of wild (tussah) silk and baby camel fleece. I
had never in my life handled anything so silky, so delicious to spin, so
lustrous and soft. I think I may be in love.

And sometimes God's going to be in the fibre, and that's where I'll find
my comfort.