Food for the Soul | October 20th, 2021
10/20/2021
Dear Friends,
My attention was captivated by this beautiful spider web. It got me started on meditating on webs in general. The dictionary defines ‘web’ as a complex system of interconnected elements. A web can have many different shapes, or no shape – unless we metaphorically give it one. Take a moment to think about all the webs we find in our lives: there is of course the World Wide Web, any piece of woven fabric, a cobweb, a pattern of relationships, a net to catch things or to keep them out, like netting over a bed, or the screen in your window; and then there is the huge web of underground fungi which connects with and talks to the trees above ground. It is quite fascinating how each thing is connected to the entire cosmos. Nothing is an island in itself.
I was reading a book by Barbara Brown Taylor (an Episcopal priest and author of many books) with essays on science and religion with the title The Luminous Web. I love reading books by people who don’t claim to be scientists, but try to understand and express science in simple terms. Of course, she talks about the Big Bang and about quantum physics. I suppose the Big Bang gave us our very first web. As it started its expansion in space it created, and is still creating, an ever more complex system of always connected particles. We used to think of subatomic particles as the smallest elements, but we now know that they, too, can be split in what is called “twins.” The fascinating thing is that when these twins move in opposite directions creating distance – even enormous distance – between them, they are still somehow connected and will “know” when something happens to the other. Because these two twins are in a state of quantum entanglement, they behave in complementary ways no matter how far apart they are. Has it ever happened to you that you had a gut feeling that something was happening to a loved one far away? Everything belongs to the unbroken wholeness of the universe. Totally awe inspiring!
Think about the many relationships you have or have had in your life; about how they overlap and interconnect; how they start and perhaps end. How is God part of your web?
Practice – The Web of your Life
I invite you to become an artist. As you think about your relationships, draw them in the form of circles (Venn diagrams) on a large sheet of paper. Show how they interconnect, allow the circles to reflect the size of these relationships. You may wish to color them. At the intersections new colors could emerge as they overlap. Show which relationships are the most important ones to you. Label them if you wish, or simply hold the labels in your heart. Become aware of how the many people in your life have affected your personal development. Pray over them. Keep your artwork handy because you may wish to add more circles from time to time. Above all, have some fun with this practice.
When I look at your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you
have established;
what are human beings
that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little
lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
(Psalm 8: 3-5)