Like the spiders

I've noticed more spiders outdoors here. More webs. Perhaps they're more visible because they hide in basements less and survive just fine in their own space. I saw one while walking home tonight. It caught the light as I was walking by the No Parking sign to which it clung. It was twitching - the spider - like it was mending the center of its elaborate home. That's its home, right? Seems strange. Exposed. We saw dozens in North Carolina. They were giant by my standards, though not as large as the one Ben took a picture of in Costa Rica. Here they hung from their webs or rested in cracks. They looked like they would cover the surface of a quarter - or at least a nickel. Thick, too. I watched the spider on the No Parking sign for awhile. They use our infrastructure, like the porch spindles and the power lines. I wonder if they're less vulnerable to predators if they live on signs instead of tree branches. I wonder what it would be like to produce on your own everything you need to survive the way a spider produces its web. It's totally self-sustaining, it seems, but I know very little about spiders. I wonder if their skill is meant for us to see at all. I wonder if my admiration of the spider's work adds any value to its existence. Humans are so needy - so dependent on others for validation and emotional sustenance. Maybe that's why nature captivates all of us, whether we believe in a creator or a cosmic boom. Nature just...is. It's impressive without trying to impress. It's artistic without critiques or lessons. It's noteworthy without calling attention to itself.

Ben and I discuss this a lot. We question our use of social media. Is it all just a way to show off? It provokes unnecessary comparisons and it invades an experience by requiring a person to break away from the moment in a false pursuit of validating it. I think this is true, but I don't think it's anything created by social media. Sharing and seeking approval is a human urge. When taken too far, it's clearly a way that we've traded the natural for the unnatural - the creator for the created. It's an example of how we've completely missed the point of all of this. But we're not like the spiders. Our consciousness, our norms require us to live in acknowledgment of one another and to seek purpose outside of creating an innately beautiful trap for our food. So we create, move, teach, serve, etc. and we share it in any way that works for us because it's how we understand our value. If a tree falls alone in the woods, does it make a sound? That depends. Is a "sound" defined by its being heard? In the same way we wonder if we are of any consequence when our best work remains unseen.

And, yet, we are like the spider. The spider spins its web, fulfilling its purpose in its tiny corner of this world. Our efforts are the same, except we have an audience. People are there...is all of this for them? Consider Col. 3:23, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." If we are like the spider, the only audience that matters is the one who created us and put in us the inexplicable desire to do anything at all. We are free! to do whatever we do without the consequence of its worth depending on people. If we present ourselves - our art, our intellect - to the Creator, it comes back validated. He is both the source of the genius and the patron. Everyone else can enjoy the work, like I did, stopping on the sidewalk to watch the spider repair it's glittering, spiraling web. Or they can choose not to, like the cars on the highway that glance at the distant mountains, but feel no urge to move closer. Whether they observe the work or not, the value remains. 

You can't deny the tension in this idea. Paul's letter to the Colossians states that all things were created by God and for God. And yet, we're relational beings placed in community with each other since the beginning. We improve or diminish each other's quality of life simply by our presence (or lack thereof). Take fatherlessness as an example. The statistics show that children who grow up without their father living in their house with their mother experience worse measurable outcomes than friends or classmates who grow up with their dads. This is true across racial and socioeconomic categories. One piece of research said that a father adds to a child's confidence just by being there and loving that child's mother. The examples are more subtle as well. My passion for journalism was shaped by my colleagues at my first job and my favorite color is an orangey red because someone once said it looks nice on me. It would be irresponsible - and silly - to neglect the evidence of the benefit of relationship and encouragement. 

Everything in life is real (like the effects of fatherlessness), but it is also a glimpse at our relationship to God. That's why all life's dilemmas flow back to the gospel. We struggle through questions of purpose and desire for approval because we desperately desire the kind of relationship with the Creator that puts all our anxiety to rest. We were created to have work assigned by the Creator and to review it with him during intimate walks in the cool of the day (Gen. 2). Or some equally friendly picture. But we chose ourselves - our own genius, our own approval - and severed the relationship, which could only be mended by Christ's life, death, and resurrection. For the person who acknowledges Christ's supremacy and willingly sets aside his/her own way to follow God's, the rest of life on earth is marked with the tension of seeing what is and knowing what should be. It isn't all fixed yet. This includes our deep desire to contribute something beautiful to the world and our community, and the undeniable truth that our desires and affections were made to be met by God.  He is the groom. He is who we profess our love and devote our lives to. Our neighbors - or followers - are the witnesses. Their presence increases our joy, but they are not the source of that joy.

So I admire the spider and sit down to write about it and out tumbles all this inner turmoil about doing life with the wrong motivations and appreciating the reader more than the muse. But in a way it all serves the same purpose, and we walk 'round and 'round alternating between the practical and the metaphorical. While I admire the spider tending to its God-inspired craft, perhaps you admire me tending to mine. Or perhaps you walk by and the light never catches your eye, but still I sit thinking about tension and meaning, mending the gaping hole that is no less real because I didn't depend on your pointing it out in the first place.