Little Messengers

March 10, 2025

In the corner of the room we have a houseguest, a pholcidae spider, sometimes called daddy longlegs, who hangs on invisible silk threads waiting for tiny bugs to wander past. Wikipedia says her web isn't sticky, but she can use it like a net or a lasso. She seems to be quite good at it, and she doesn't bother anyone, so we pretty much leave each other alone. I figure as long as she's happy and busy, I don't need to use bug-spray in the house.

I bring it up because I'm one of those who let dandelions grow until they bloom. Pigeons roost in my rafters, cats hunt in my garden, and in the dry season, wild javalina eat the fruit from my cactus. I watch birds come and build their nests, each in their own season. The most common flowers here are the natives, durable, short-lived, making whole lives in a matter of days between the last rains and the start of long stretches of cloudless days. Life flows in, around and through my house—and I've developed a sort of consciousness of it, like the sound of a radio all the way down at the end of the street.

I think that this awareness of life is an attribute of the human soul which, in the rightful order of Creation, set humans on a special level. We seem poor by comparison with other heavenly creatures, but from the start, the Divine gift of a soul made us capable of participating in God's own life. The soul cares for and directs the body in its natural created life, it is part of who we are.

And it is damaged. The original sin of our ancestors knocked our souls loose, in a sense, like a disconnected wire. The full power of our relationship with God—our life, through him, with him and in him—was inhibited and our souls came to exist in a state of greatly reduced power. The body with its passions assumed an authority that was not its birthright and we've been struggling ever since.

The work of conversion is a journey to awaken and restore the unhindered flow of life between God and people. Jesus, the Christ, by taking on the form and substance of humanity, restored us to full life in God.

But we still struggle. Because our awareness is weak and imperfect. We journey in an arid climate of sin and suffering. We get bits and glimpses of glory, then settle back into a stupor, wondering if we imagined the whole thing.

 Until a little spider shakes her web as if to say “You are not alone.”

Ours is a God who has made himself knowable.