All the colors of the rainbow
This morning I started weaving the second stole of the Rainbow Stole warp. I wove an inch and then started hemstitching the ends. There’s time to think when I’m hemstitching - unlike weaving where I need to count, or likely loose my place in the pattern.
It seemed odd to be weaving vestments on this day when all of the altars are stripped bare. Tomorrow they will be ablaze with white, but today, surrounded by vigilants in silent prayer, the altars - wood for the cross or stone for the tomb - are not softened with any fabric.
The ends of the rainbow stole are white, and it occurred to me that it is white fabric that marks the beginning and the end of life - the swaddling cloths and the shroud. White, that holds all of the colors of the rainbow. It is in the middle of life that the colors are broken out and with which we mark the turning of the year - purple for the days of preparation and penitence, red for the strength of youth and the power of the Holy Spirit, green for the days of fresh pastures and still waters.
But today, for a few inches, I will be weaving a shroud. Tomorrow, it will be the swaddling clothes of rebirth and resurrection - one in the same. And after that life goes on, in all its colors.
