I have heard it said that before you leave Türkiye you must see a carpet demonstration. So, after leaving the ruins of Ephesus we headed straight for a carpet factory.
Upon entering a room whose walls were covered in Turkish rugs, to our left was a vat of warm water with what appeared to be a basket of cotton balls. A lady stood behind the vat and the salesman began his presentation of the beauty and durability of silk. “Silk,” he said, “comes from a caterpillar that feeds upon mulberry leaves.” He was careful to note that pound for pound silk is stronger than steel. As the lady threw several dozen “cotton balls” or silk worm cocoons into the vat she began to stir them with what appeared to be a small twig from a tree. My question has always been when you are unraveling a cocoon, “How do you find the end of the thread?” The twig is the answer. As the cocoons are being stirred, the ends of the thread will latch on to the twig and the cocoons will begin to unravel. One single cocoon will yield 1,000 to 2,000 feet of silk; that’s three to six football fields long. We were told that to make the best, most luxurious rugs, one needed to discard the first and last several feet of silk since they are courser and only the middle portion is used.
We were then taken into a larger room adorned with beautiful carpets hanging on the walls and hundreds of smaller carpets rolled up in piles. There our group was treated to a meal of lamb, tomatoes, and stuffed peppers. While we ate, he showed us how carpets were made. A lady sat on a small bench and began to weave the fabric back and forth on the loom. He said that a single carpet could take several months to over a year depending on the size.
One interesting fact is that he said that a true silk rug will get better with age. Whereas my mom would always tell us to not walk on the carpet, he said that a true silk rug gets better the more one walks on it because the threads get tighter and tighter each time one steps on it. He also said that a true silk carpet can easily last 150 years and some much longer. A well-kept silk rug can last centuries and even increase in value.
The spiritual point I want to make from this is that the church ought to be like the threads of a silk rug. The more we face adversity the stronger we should get. The church consists of people or threads. As the threads go through times of struggle, challenges, and persecutions, the church ought to grow closer together. Paul said, “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). In the church, we are all in the same boat, or in the same rug.
Paul in various places in His letter used the imagery of being knit together. In Ephesians 4:15-16, he said, “Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” Later in Colossians, Paul wrote, “that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God” (Colossians 2:2). He followed this idea up in verse 19 by saying, “from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.”
When hardships hit such as physical illness, tragic accident, or death, each member of the family of God ought to pull together and make the whole body stronger. We cannot allow selfishness and pride to tear us apart. We must set our eyes upon the unity of the body and the strength which comes from the adversities we face. So, walk on the rug if you want; it will only make us better and better.
Roy Knight
