“A cloth is not woven from a single thread.”

– Chinese Proverb

“Hurry up, Grandma!  I want to wear it today!”  I pulled out my sewing box and looked for a needle and the right green thread to repair the small tear in Ivy’s favorite hoodie.  Without thinking, I pulled a length of thread from the spool, bit through it with my teeth, and threaded the needle.  A few stitches later, the shirt was good to go — before my granddaughter had finished her toast.  All it took was a single thread, run through a needle and looped through the threads that made up the fabric of her shirt, and the repair was done.  A single thread is a fragile thing, but when it is looped and woven with other threads, the fabric it creates is sturdy and strong.

Sixty-six days ago, I made a New Year’s Resolution.  This is a bit out of character for me, since I generally don’t like to be bound by traditions that are mixed and muddled with Hallmark cards and obligatory celebrations.  It really went beyond a resolution.  It was a decision.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed writing; but for the past year I’ve been thinking that if I really want to be a writer, what I need to do is write — not only when the need to write overwhelmed me, but in a committed and intentional way.  That is all this blog was about:  forming an intention to write each day and to put it out for public scrutiny instead of keeping it in a folder where I was the only one who saw it.  And then the weaving began.

“A cloth is not woven from a single thread.”  This is very true.  As an individual, I’ve spent years accumulating the experiences, the joys, the heartaches — the living — that have been woven to create the fabric of my life.  There are parts of my tapestry that shine with color, parts that glow with the light of discovery, and parts that are shadowed and quiet and gray.  I love each thread that is part of my cloth, and I love the way I can follow a thread to the place where it is woven into another one and the result is growth and awareness.

What has been amazing in the last sixty-six days is the way that opening my hidden folder has allowed me to find other individuals who have woven their own cloth and who care to unfold it and show me the pictures that are their own tapestries.  As I picture these women, look with my heart at the beauty of their fabric, I see threads that resemble some that I call my own.  How exciting when the thread of another person matches one of mine and we can tie a small knot that joins our stories together.  How beautiful when I see one weaver pull a still-attached thread and offer its end to another who needs just a bit of that color in her own life — and as she handles the thread and sees its truth and takes in its beauty, she once again brings color to her own ever-changing fabric.

“A cloth is not woven from a single thread.”  As the fabric of each life finds the threads that connect it with the beauty and color of the tapestries of others, we find a kind of oneness — a kind of unity — that can weave a more beautiful world.  I invite you today to visit the tapestries of the beautiful people on my brand new blogroll.  If you find some common color in your threads and a similar pattern in your weaving, you will be blessed beyond your wildest imagination!

As the list grows and as the threads connect, we just might blanket the earth one day in a beautiful tapestry woven with the threads of harmony and peace.