Spiders and Giving Thanks

      by Diane Cunningham



 This morning Peter was completely captivated by the cobwebs on our patio. “Tell me they’re not real. There can’t be that many.” He said. 
    A heavy fog had rolled in and the moisture in the air had settled on the multitude of cobwebs that had formed on our patio that hadn’t been used much since the cooler wet weather had arrived. It was a moment of wonder and discovery as we each spotted a

cobweb and then another and another. On the furniture, the fuchsia, the gate, the tree they hung suspended and finally visible with the fine droplets of water attached to them. 
   Then as he headed out the front door to go off to school he spotted them on our big bush out front. “Look

Mommy, there are more!” 
     After the van, full of my loved ones pulled away, I stopped and counted the multitude of 6 inch cobwebs on that bush. One side alone had 24! Each angle that you looked at it from revealed more delicate weaving, carefully crafted by a little creature. It was a delightful moment.

     I love this time of year when the invisible becomes visible and God's presence becomes evident.  We see it in the filigree of the cobweb and in the abundance of the harvest.  

    We have a book about spiders.  It points out that we are never more than three feet away from a spider at any moment. That is sometimes hard to believe and often not something we want to think about.

But I remember one November day, driving along East Saanich Road and seeing, suspended between the power lines hundreds of spider webs. I was so amazed that I pulled over and stopped to count a section of them. In a mere 100 feet, I saw over a hundred just on the power lines and poles! Overwhelmed by the sheer number of them I was moved to think about how they got there. Did the spiders just make them for that morning? Where are they the rest of the time? At that moment the spider’s web became for me a symbol of God’s presence in our lives. Blissfully unaware of the little creatures, we carry on as though they weren't there.

Then, one morning, when the conditions are just right and we pause for a moment, we see the evidence of their presence.
      So God is there with us, never more than a prayer away, His fingerprints touching so many points in our lives. He is always there, even when we are oblivious to His presence, even when we are trying to ignore Him, even when we are too busy to take that moment to see Him.


Paul says in Acts 17
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heavenand earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himselfgives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their
lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.”

Jesus told his disciples just before he ascended into heaven “...and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matt 28:20

And I praise God with the psalmist who long ago celebrated God’s
creation.

Psalm 8
1 LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

   So, this Thanksgiving Sunday, along with the blessings of harvest, I thank God for those fine little strands suspended in mid-air that remind me that I am never alone and I praise Him for revealing Himself in His creation.