Sobhani Folk Art

Sunday was blessed with meeting, not only with so many friends at the Devotional Meeting, but with our old friends Robert and Lynda Carpenter, and Elrico Evans and his daughter Tanika. Tanika is now eighteen; when they came into our community, and our hearts, she was about two, toddling around. Both families had moved out of Tacoma and we had lost touch for awhile. What a pleasure it is to have them near again.

We heard, in more detail than I remember before, the story of how they left Shiloh Baptist Church, a very strong and vibrant African American spiritual community. [They asked if I remember attending Shiloh once. I said, "Oh, you never forget a service at Shiloh!"] Both Robert and Elrico had been pastors there, and actually split from the church on philosophical &/or theological differences before they joined the community of Baha'is, thus enriching the cultural texture and knowledge base of our community immeasurably. Many pastors who do this give up their livelihoods, as there is no clergy in the Baha'i Faith.

In the midst of this study, caught up in the Holy Spirit, I saw Elrico digging into his backpack, and pulling out a prayer book to show me. To my pleasure and astonishment I saw the hand-sewn cover, which unmistakably I had created years in the past, and completely forgotten about. It was as if some stranger-Arlene had made this. [Soon I'll probably be hiding my own Easter eggs.]

On the cover with applique and machine embroidery I had made a figure facing away with arms upraised in a "Y" shape, as the initial letter of the phrase, "Ye are the angels." It is an example of what I was just getting into before my divorce; the concept of "illuminating" words, specifically, the Baha'i and related writings.

In the middle ages the monks hunched over the manuscripts they were lettering by hand, making the initial letters wondrous works of art, and surrounding the piece often with other art such as trailing leaves, and so forth. So I conceived the idea that this could be done with fabric, as I did with the Mountain of the Lord tapestry. The prayer book cover was also a very nice example of folk art.

My dream is to accomplish the impossible: to establish my company, Sobhani Folk Art, in the midst of the turmoil of my life, and at the height of my excruciatingly challenging career as a charge nurse. Inshallah.

"Ye are the angels if your feet be firm, your secret thoughts pure . . . "