Minilogue - June 2005
Weaving the Fabric
By the Rev. Bruce Johnson
Dear weaver of our lives’ design whose patterns all obey, With skillful fingers gently guide the sturdy threads that will survive the tangle of our days.
Take up the fabric of our lives with hands that gently hold; bind in the ragged edge that care would sunder and that pain would tear, and mend our rav’ ling souls.
Let eyes that in the plainest cloth a hidden beauty see discern in us our richest hues, show us the patterns we may use to set our spirits free.
-- Nancy Dorian
I sometimes think of ministry as the art of weaving the fabric of religious community. The warp threads, in this analogy, are those strong, time-tested strands of the world’s great wisdom traditions, stretched across the “loom” of Unitarian Universalist Principles, our basic framework of values. As a preacher, I try each week to lift up strands from these traditions, hoping to show their relevance for contemporary life-issues. If the fabric is very fine, each thread may represent a single sacred story or text which, in turn, becomes the basis of my sermon (the word, “text,” after all, derives from a Latin verb which means, “to weave,” so it is fitting to weave those written words into the texture of my talk). What I try to do in a sermon is to create an opening - what weavers call a “shed” - creating a space so that you can thread your personal stories - which are the weft of our community - into the interconnected web of which we are all a part. Those points of intersection, of crossing and connection, are where religion comes alive for us as individuals, and also where the relational bonds of community are formed and made fast. The word “religion” itself comes from another Latin verb which means, “to re-connect,” or “to tie back together.”
This weaving metaphor is attractive to me because it combines great simplicity and infinite possibility. What could be more simple than the layout of a primitive loom? And yet what endless complexity, what amazing beauty can emerge, beginning with this bare skeletal structure!
Just for fun, you may want to extend the metaphor of congregational life as a woven fabric. If UUCUV were a fabric, what would it be? Cotton for its comfort? Wool for its warmth? Rare silk symbolizing beauty and sophistication, or polyester for.. affordability and convenience? Are we a fine linen or a durable, rugged denim? You get the idea. Probably we include all of these threads, and more.
Beyond the material itself, what patterns would appear among us? Perhaps we are a colorful Navaho prayer rug, with an intentional flaw woven in to remind us that only God can create something perfect. In some ways, the patterned fabric of our community is like the Jewish prayer shawl, or tallit, a simple striped cloth with fine fringes to finger as we contemplate our place amid the mystery. At other times, we resemble a rugged, coarsely woven kilim, the traditional prayer rug of Turkish nomads, which served to inspire tales of “magic carpets” among Islamic storytellers. The possibilities of religious community are endless, but the basic design is simple and the same; whatever rich patterns are woven among us will be the result of our creative interactions with each other and with the materials of tradition that we have inherited. Let’s keep weaving!