Among the Myrrh- Bearers

I planted some flax in the garden this spring, after becoming enamored of the plant through flax fiber and linseed oil while playing with wood finishes. I started out with ‘boiled’ linseed oil and became curious about the stuff. I began to research the many uses of linseed oil. I also discovered sources for organically grown linseed oil, which does not have the chemical drying agents that BLO does. One direction this sent we was far more into the practical alchemy of wood finishes. I’ve found Bob Flexner’s Understanding Wood Finishing a valuable resource, both as a how-to manual and as an explanation of the chemistry of common wood finishes. Flexner is of the ‘better living through chemistry’ school of thought. He thinks that such things as beeswax and linseed oil were used out of pure necessity in ages past, and that we have little reason to use those inferior materials when we have an assortment of finishes derived from petro-chemicals. I appreciate all his detailed research, but I remain very enamoured of flax, linseed oil and beeswax. I suspect that that sense of beauty, curiosity, symbolic richness, even love may have figured into the motivations of people in days past in their choice to use these materials as well. The variety I planted was actually a fiber-oriented variety developed in the Netherlands, which the crop breeder named ‘Marilyn’ after Marilyn Monroe. I planted it to get to know the plant. Fiber flax is harvested early, but I watched this grow until the seed was ripe.

Linseed oil is as a wood finish on its own and in mixtures with other substances, such as beeswax, plant and synthetic resins, or solvents such as turpentine. It also makes good oil-based paint. And it is used to make linoleum. Whilst doing this research experiments with the flax plant and various wood finishes, I also picked up some beeswax and natural turpentine. They are welcome changes to the smell of many wood finishes. It’s been quite amazing to ponder these materials we gather from the bees and trees that make them. The rosin for a violin bow is also gathered from trees. It just amazing what we receive from bees and the forest! Among the organic compounds trees produce are ones called ‘terpenes,’ among which are the components of turpentine. Trees also release these into the air, which make the practice of forest bathing healthful and is potentially protective against cancer according to Diana Beresford-Kroeger and others. Turpentine itself, which along with its various applications as a solvent, has been used in a variety of folk-medicines. “The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted.” Psalm 104:16

Flax fiber and tree resins figure into the care and clothing of the human body. This is true in the biblical stories, where they appear not only as clothing and offerings in worship, but especially in the religious care of the body in death. Tree resins such as myrrh and others were used to anoint and perfume the body as it was prepared for burial, and shrouded in a line cloth. These were sensed somehow as appropriate in care and clothing the body that would be entrusted to the earth for decomposition, and the whole person entrusted in faith and simplicity to the world to come.

Which brings us to these two Mary’s and Martha. The episcopal church calendar remembers Mary Magdalene in a major feast on July 22, and the sisters from Bethany in a lesser feast on July 29. In the eastern orthodox tradition, they are among the people known as the “Myrhh bearers.” Mary, Mary and Martha brought myrhh, aloes, linen and other materials to anoint the body of Jesus after his death on the cross, as women or men might have done in their day for a male relative, for this friend.  Mary had sat at Jesus’ feet listening in one gospel passage, the same passage that depicts Martha bearing the work of the hospitality shown to Jesus. We might remember Martha is the one who invited Jesus into her home, a contemplative act of reception in its own right. Mary Magdalene received Jesus in his first resurrection appearance. Some would name her the first apostle. All three of them went to Jesus, after he had died, to bear, even welcome the grief of his death within their heart as they would anoint his body with precious materials from the earth and prepare to let him go.

This causes me to reflect in a new way about the symbolic significance of wood finishes. Many a woodworker will attest to the frustrating quality of wood finishing. But maybe this experience of frustration can be illuminated a bit by counting it a moment to welcome what arrives moment by moment in suffering and glory as we handle earth grown materials like linseed oil, beeswax, tree resins, and turpentine.  In working with pieces of wood, one reaches out to embrace the cross and anoint the body of Christ as a friend and family member would do, learning to to wait with Christ and receive what is precious from the tree of life.

Myrrh Bearers, Cloisonne