Commentary: Leap of faith

I’ve often pondered the lowly spider. I may alienate myself from some of my friends, but I admire those “crawley” little critters.

On more than one occasion I’ve found myself in some contorted position, watching the engineering spectacle of a spider spinning a web in order to snag some unsuspecting dinner.In the times I’ve watched that phenomenal display, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the spider stop to take a rest. It’s just a frantic scurry to get the web in place in time for a unwary culinary delight to fly by.

I’ve also wondered what goes through a spider’s tiny brain when the spider, by merely making an entrance, sends beings, thousands of times the spider’s size, screaming from the room. What power, what supremacy, what dominion the spider must feel by the experience.But I think the most profoundly I’ve been spoken to by a spider was recently. On a Saturday morning my wife and I were the first to enter the sanctuary of Camp Hill UMC. The first blinding rays of a spring sun were piercing the unlit space.

My wife pointed and said, “Look!”

Glistening in the sun was a tiny, silky, silver strand hanging from the very center of the ceiling to the carpet below.

I could only imagine the preceding night.

Somewhere in that sanctuary there must have been a little spider looking on at these two humans in awe of his nocturnal feat.

If you put the spider into perspective, and if my math is right, diving 40 feet for the spider is comparable to you and me diving 1,800 feet.

Hmmmmm!

Somehow, during the night a little spider, perched on the ceiling of the Camp Hill church, looked at the situation. There were three options: (1) stay on the ceiling and figure out the rest of life lived on the ceiling, (2) crawl to the side wall and crawl down, taking hours and hours, or (3) take a calculated leap to the floor to arrive in a matter of a minute or two.

Somehow a little spider’s brain picked a leap of faith, a feat of daring-do, a risky flight without a parachute. A little spider decided there were enough resources down inside of his little anatomy for a safe landing on yonder carpet.

A silvery strand hanging in front of us proclaimed a spider’s wise courage and coaxed us to a our own leap of faith.

Glad we could get together.