Call me indulgent. I really don't mind so much. When it comes to being a parent a little indulgence goes a long way. From my youngest son Dominic, who is autistic, I have learned to be indulgent to extremes--I have learned to watch him closely--to observe his mannerisms and idiosyncrasies--and to learn about God from him.
Dominic has a love for the things of nature. I actually can't quite express it such a way to do him justice. He finds the little things of creation and studies them; you might say he cherishes creation in a way peculiar to himself. From the farthest objects in the cosmos, to the raccoon living under my shed, Dominic has learned to express love and fascination. I find myself indulging and nurturing this in him more and more. Along the way I share in his loves; I come to appreciate the things he appreciates.
Around my house we have come to respect practically every living thing, such was also the case when Dominic discovered a magnificent and quite large example of Argiope Aurantia living in the ivy at the front of my house. Many people would have grabbed the bug spray right away. However, Dominic had already named our new pet. "I think we'll call her Taylor," he told me. At that I realized we were the proud owners of new resident outside our home: Taylor the wonderful writing spider.
After Dominic, dad, mom, brother and sister, made several daily visits to the ivy Taylor eventually moved her web so that she would be closer to us--it only took her overnight to make the long journey around the side of the house to spin a web near the front window--it was a better place to trap bugs, we reasoned, and so Taylor lived near the window for a couple weeks, getting her daily visits from Dominic and the rest of us. I even warned the fellow who mowed the yard about our special guest.
We took our care not to disturb her, or to get too close. We simply stopped each day for a moment's admiration. "Everything has its purpose" I'd tell the kids, "we can learn quite a bit from nature."
It was coincidental to the spider's arrival that Dominic began asking a lot of Jesus questions--sure, he's had religious education, but he hadn't really gotten into a lot of spontaneous questioning. My wife was taking care of most of the answers, which I reckoned came right out of her traditional Catholic upbringing. I was thinking about how I would have answered from my Evangelical upbringing, and how "You go to heaven by being good" wouldn't have been a part of those answers for me 20 years ago. I was thinking more about how you invite Jesus in--sort of the way that we were inviting the spider without really knowing it so much. Of course being good has everything to do with it: being good is how we imitate God.
In addition to Dominic's questions my daughter has also been talking a bit more about the faith. She said a kid asked her if she "knew Jesus." She answered that she certainly knows who he is but hadn't met him personally. Quite honest for her I thought. Give her time. She'll find a way to refine that answer. When you invite Jesus just a little, he will show up at your door. It's just the way that nature works, and there's nothing that can be closer to nature than its Creator. It's easy to see the good in things when you look for it.
Every invitation in life gets a response--whether from nature or from God--so there really should have been no big surprise this morning when I opened the door to leave the house for Mass and there was Taylor staring me right in the face. You should have heard me scream. I suppose there is a lesson in all of this, even a very biblical lesson--I'll leave it to you and your comments.
"..the day of the Lord shall come like a thief in the night.."
And so do the Taylors..
She's a tad size-y; say hello for me, but don't give her my address..
:-) How'd Dominic come up with her name?
Posted by: Anon. | September 24, 2007 at 12:10 AM
A tad size-y??? Grab the bugspray??? I would have called 911.
Posted by: Gabrielle | October 03, 2007 at 11:43 PM
Which is to say, my response to Taylor wouldn't have been Biblical, unless we're talking about sacrificial offerings.
Posted by: Gabrielle | October 03, 2007 at 11:49 PM
Now that's "some spider!" I wouldn't invite her in for munchies during the big game, though!
Nice pic, BTW!
Posted by: Paul Stokell | October 04, 2007 at 07:13 AM