The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft, woof, or filling. Cloth is usually woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads taught and in place while weft threads are woven through them.  The art of weaving is a profound metaphor for understanding the workings of the universe and our place in it. It is the essential art of creating the unified one out of opposites for the benefit of something larger.  Dario Valcarenghi, in Kilim History and Symbols, sums it up in these words: “To produce the textile it is necessary for these two threads to be bound, otherwise each will remain a fragile and fluttering potentiality...if the meeting of opposites does not take place, nothing is created, for each element is defined by its opposite and takes its meaning from it.”  Weaving is ubiquitous in our lives. Clothes, sheets, towels, furniture coverings, flags and rugs are all woven products. Weaving permeates our language. How many times have you used the phrase “woven together” or “weaves through” to imply an integration of elements? How about that familiar warning from Walter Scott – “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”  We are bound to our bodies with fragile threads. Our skeleton is a loom on which every system is strung and woven with our blood. The meeting of opposite elements woven into a whole is the quest of every spiritual seeker.

It is a beautiful metaphor about how we embody Baptismal life.  As beloved, gifted people, we wrap ourselves like fibers in and out of the demands and responsibilities of our Baptisms to create a community that is warm and durable, beautiful and holy.