The sewing room

Barbara Cawthorne Crafton is among the first women ordained to the Episcopal priesthood, in which capacity she has ministered in both the richest and poorest sections of New York City. She is also a sensitive writer who addresses the human condition with plainspoken eloquence and bracing moral common sense. Cynthia Ozick writes, "The Reverend Crafton's purity of insight and pellucid voice suggest transparencies - one sees straight through them into the unshielded light of the plainest human truths. A shelf is dusted, a grandmother's sewing machine is recalled, mothers and fathers are praised and appraised, a lost child is mourned - and the weave of our lives is movingly unwound, ribbon by ribbon, until our hands are filled with rosiness and rue. Upon small moments large mercies are shed. Barbara Crafton's essays are everyone's heirlooms." These rich, moving essays will be read again and again.