"Laws are like spider’s webs: if some poor weak creature come [sic] up against them, it is caught; but a bigger one can break through and get away." Solon of Athens (ca. 640 BCE)
The season of the spiders is upon us. The weather’s turned chilly, so creepy crawly things are making their way inside to take up residence. If I can catch them, I try to put them outside first; after all, it isn’t their fault they’re coming in out of the weather. We all do that!
I used to be deathly afraid of spiders. I still remember putting on my shoes for school one morning eons ago, and just as I picked up one of my tennies, this huge hairy scary spider leapt out of it, up onto the tongue, seemingly wondering just what I thought I was doing disturbing their home. It gave me such a fright that I still, to this day, shake my shoes out before putting them on.
As I recall I let out a very unmanly scream (I think I was about ten or twelve years old), flung the shoe away at something approaching light speed, and discovered that spiders are somewhat like china. You know, you have a set of china sitting on a table, and if you whip the tablecloth away quickly enough, the china stays put. Well, so did the spider.
Fortunately, by then my arms and legs had become cartoonish wheels, making a whirling dervish of their owner, and by the time I slowed down enough to avoid coming totally apart at the seams, the spider had made its way from this human twister, to finding a new, dark, and quiet place in which to go spin itself a fresh web.
I’m less frightened of spiders now. I exercise due care and caution around them, but I still experience a jolt of adrenaline when I find myself walking through a web strung between a couple of bushes or trees outside.
But rather than freezing in terror, I find myself looking at the intricacies of those arachnid belay lines and wonder to myself, “How on earth did they get this web strung horizontally between two trees, that many feet apart? Do they lick their little paws, hold them up to test the wind, and let fly with a web when the wind is going their way? Do they stick one end of the web to a branch and go all Tarzan, yodeling from one tree to the next?”
I guess it doesn’t matter, but it’s asking questions that intrigue me these days. I think we often underestimate the importance of questions. When we’re children, we’re curious about the world. We touch, feel, and taste everything within reach and learn quite quickly what hurts, tastes, or smells yucky. As we get older, we ask fewer questions. That’s too bad.
I ask questions more and more in my dotage. Some are quite challenging, like why did I go into the kitchen or out to the garage. Others simply spark my curiosity about life, and nature, and why things are the way they are.
Questions no longer frighten me. As a student, I was always afraid I’d get answers wrong. Sometimes my fear was well-founded. But life isn’t about having all the right answers, but asking the right questions, and working together to find our way forward. We need not fear the questions, nor need we fear the answers. We only have to trust that the answers will reveal themselves if we keep our eyes and ears open.
In the end, it is enough to delight in the intricacies of nature, and marvel at the world around us. Just watch out for webs, though. It’s the season of the spiders here in this, our valley.
Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)
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