Potential

When I was in college, I took a class called “Christian Understandings of the Human Experience.”  The majority of my grade hinged on a massive term paper I was required to write on a single word chosen from the Bible.  I decided on the word "light," which was an excellent word for such an assignment.  There are many references to light in the Bible, most of which are wonderful for expanding our understanding of spiritual matters.

I have been looking at some of the other One Word 365 blogs and there are some inspirational posts out there.  Weave, my One Word for 2013, kind of sticks out like a sore thumb among all the beautiful and deeply meaningful words chosen by others.  "Light" would have been a much more inspiring word to choose, but I've already written somewhat extensively about light, so that would kind of be cheating.  That and I would feel kinda bad for abandoning my word before I really gave it a chance to reveal its potential.

I can tell you right now that I have found zero inspiring passages in the Bible about weaving or weavers or anything woven.  Every scripture reference I’ve found is either instructional, like in Exodus and Judges where commands are given around the type of fabric required for priestly garments, or they are references to woe and despair, like in Job and Isaiah. 

No matter.  I am resourceful.  And while I do believe that all scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training, I do not believe that scripture is the only place we can learn about God or the only resource we can use for learning and growing and shaping our lives. 

That’s right.  I looked up “weaving” on Wikipedia.

According to Wikipedia, weaving is "a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth.... The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling."  Okay.  I’m not going to summarize the rest of it here, however anyone interested can click this link and read the thrilling explanation of weaving for his or her self. 

I don’t plan on giving a linguistics lesson in every one of these posts; I’m simply trying to get all cozy and personal with my word so I can work on how a word like “Weave” can be sum up how I want to live in 2013. I have a feeling this is going to turn out quite different than I’d first thought when pushed myself to try this whole One Word thing, but that’s okay.  I did manage to find a few lines in my research that stood out to me:

Warp means "that which is thrown across.”  Weft is an old English word meaning "that which is woven."  The method in which these threads are inter woven affects the characteristics of the cloth.  Because the warp is held under high tension during the entire process of weaving, warp yarn must be strong.

There we go.  Potential.