Dorcas: Weaving Together

*This is a previous Reflection, but “What is Dorcas” came up as a question at our Annual Meeting today and we decided to repost…

The Dorcas Legacy
One small candle flame holds steady the light
One small needle moves through linen
With its sharp tip full of angels and grace
A stem that glides easily from darkness to light
Shining with deepest love and deeper compassion
Guided by small calloused fingertips 
That nourish both body and  soul
The inseparable inner and outer worlds
Robed in cloth and Goodness
The goodness of this world
The goodness of the beyond—
The simplest things are more dear and
Important than simply wool and linen
The needle glows with beams of Light
Those hands and eyes radiate with Kindness.

1. We can do things on our own, but sometimes we do it even better in Good Company.  
2. Our BIG work often looks very small

Because I don’t want you all to grow up not knowing who Dorcas is, I’m here this week, the day after the Village Fair, which is put on by our own Dorcas Group, to remind you of who Dorcas is, why she is so important, and to see the roots of her legacy and how that legacy just keeps continuing.  

Before we move on, let’s give a BIG shout out to our Dorcas Group and all the work put into putting on the Fair.  PAUSE.  For this big event…everyone is an offshoot of the Dorcas Group, so let’s give a shout out to all the hands that came together to make this thing happen for another year with many, many more to come!!  

There is only a small passage in the Bible about Dorcas: “This woman (Dorcas, or Tabitha) was full of good works and alms deeds, which she did.”  Act 9:36.  That’s it.  Oh, and that she was a widow, or might have been a widow, and she had died and her friends who also were mostly widows were unhappy and appealed to Peter to save her. She was a seamstress, hence her legacy having to do with women gathering together to sew and chat and give.  

Somehow, she is so much bigger than this simple passage.  

Dorcas is also called Tabitha which means “gazelle” or “gracious”.  There are many translations of the passage, but here’s two really important things that come up with Dorcas, whose story is a mere seven verses.  

She is called a disciple.  A disciple means that she is both a student of God and Jesus and also a teacher for God and Jesus.  She is someone who learns from Jesus to live like Jesus.  She is both humble and important.  

The widows show Peter the “robes” that Dorcas has made.  The word robe had deeper meaning that what we might think.  Whenever the word ‘robe’ is used, it is usually in a place of change, often of death to life.  

In some translations, Peter is shown the inner and outer robes that Dorcas has made.  The inner robes likely symbolize the newness in spirituality and the outer robes symbolize newness in purpose.  She would truly have been a disciple of God in this case.  It would make sense that her work would be to change the inner and outer lives of the persons around her, the widows.  She would affect them both spiritually and physically.  All aspects of gathering together as women and particularly as women who have full human lives and have experienced loss.  

We don’t know for certain if Dorcas would have been a woman of means or simple a woman who worked hard and then used her spare time doing the good work of giving back to the poorer around her, as well as listening and teaching.  If she was not a woman of means, her work would have been hard.  Spinning and weaving and working with what would have probably been flax (linen) would have been labor intensive work.  

Regardless, she was a friend to the poor and the widows.  When she died, the women would have been losing a much needed and loved leader.  These women called on Peter, who was a wanted criminal, to come and aid them.  Their bravery was strong.  Their faith was strong.  These are not weak women.  

Peter came and raised up Dorcas and faith in God and Jesus spread.  She lives. 

Dorcas’s good work lives on.  We have our own Dorcas group here: sewing, chatting, planning, and doing the hands on work of the church and the community in extra time.   

Dorcas societies had their height in the 1800’s. They were complementary of each other and not competitive.  They made clothing and helped to meet the physical needs of the poor.  In their circles they would come together to chat, gossip, support one another through life. They would talk spirituality, exploring how to live like Jesus, to honor God, to process grief, and even to talk politics.  They would support each other in building up both their inner and outer “robes”.  The physical and the spiritual robes.  

In the American colonies, women were often in charge of the household expenses.  One of the first circles began when the women took to spinning their own wool and fabric to avoid the Fabric Tax of the British.  Churches had friendly spinning competitions.  The women, and these sewing circles, were instrumental to the revolt against Britain.  They were part of the resistance and when the war came they were the ones who made socks and hats and uniforms during the war.  

Women, and these circles, were instrumental in the abolition of slavery; while their hands worked they discussed.  Through sewing circles, the suffrage movement grew.  Here a juxtaposition came into play: to sew or not to sew.  Those on the ‘no’ side pushed against traditional roles of ‘women’s work’ while others used sewing as part of the platform: we are still women, not trying to be men, but we do deserve a vote.  

And thru the centuries and decades we move.  Dorcas’s legacy.  

It might be easy to think that sewing circles are antiquated.  In different ways, women (and men) are still gathering together to create small hand made products to lessen their weight on the earth.  Some are building small businesses of home made products to protest big industry and “too much”.  We “sew” to live simply and connect deeply.  Through it all, we talk.  We learn together about things bigger than the project in our hands.  

We need safe, sacred circles to gossip (kindly), to grieve, in community and to grow intellectually and spiritually.  We need places to connect in a disconnected world. We need places of hope, community and upliftedness.  We need places where we truly SEE one another as individuals.  Places, circles, where we do the small, needed work with our hands, together, while we digest the news, the politics, and our own life challenges and losses.  

The Dorcas Society.org strives to find “the potential in every human being”.  Yes, Dorcas’s legacy is quite beautiful and quite timely.  Let’s find the good.  Let us find the potential in every human being and hold out our hands…to every human beings who needs us.  

GOOD begins in small connected circles of friends and community where we can listen, share, and then that GOODness spreads from that space with a sock, a scarf, a hat, a plate of cookies, a letter, a bowl of soup, a gift, to communities near and far.  Goodness spreads.  

Be full of full of good works and alms deeds.  And have faith that it spread.