Kind Promise: I will advocate courageously.
When I was 20, I spent time hanging out in the studio of a weaver, Don Antonio, in the village of Chalchihuites, Mexico. He taught me to spin at a great wheel made out of a bicycle while he wove woolen rugs on the loom nearby.
Warp and weft. The warp are the long strands that are held in tension on the frame of the loom. The weft are woven through the warp to make cloth. In Don Antonio’s rugs, the changing colors of the weft made the design. The warp provided strength and structure.
Change swirls around me: I am changing residences, changing vehicles and ending my day job. The weft of my life is changing color. What makes up the warp? What provides strength and structure in my life? What threads have been part of my life since the beginning?
Faith/spirituality
Believing in something that connects all of us and is a force for good in the universe and believing that I am part of it and have a relationship with it is important.
Loving and being loved
I have always loved and been loved. Relationships – even as awkward and fumbling as I am with them – are important.
Appreciating and creating beauty
The beauty around me nourishes me and I respond to it creatively. (I was going to say “by creating objects I find beautiful,” but digital art isn’t really an object…)
Learning and discovery
I love gathering knowledge and skills just for the sake of learning. I love experimenting to find out what happens and finding new ways of doing something.
Thoreau famously said “it is not enough to be busy… The question is: what are we busy about?” Similarly, advocating courageously is not the point… The question is what – or for whom – am I advocating?
Now that I’ve identified some of the strands in the warp, I can use the colors brought to me by circumstance to weave the cloth for this new season of my life.
PS. The first new thing to which I have answered yes is teaching Sunday school. Check it out: faith, love, beauty and learning threads all present!