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| "Praying Mantis on a Fingertip" photo by Richard Quick |
I never watch doom-and-gloom television shows, and steadfastly refuse to listen to people's stories of their fear of nature and its consequences. But recently I saw a short snippet of a video about brown recluse spiders, which are prevalent in our area. The narrator of this video was telling us how spiders don't attack unless they're surprised or bothered in some way, and they showed a clip of a spider resting on a stack of washcloths with a person's hand going toward them. Yikes!! Well, that image has stuck in my mind to the extent that I look for spiders on every towel or washcloth I touch. And the odd thing is, I try to pretend I'm not doing this! Who do I think I'm fooling? This is the type of fearful living which I refuse to acknowledge, but yet I'm doing it. And so now, I can choose to analyze this behavior and rationalize that I don't worry about spiders in other places so why here. But that's all it would be: a material rationalization, trying to convince myself there's nothing to fear. A Course in Miracles tells us “my mind holds only what I think with God”. So I must ask myself if God is afraid of spiders. We are also told in ACIM to “loose the world from all I thought it was”, and this is sufficient reason for me to loose my beliefs and reactions to creepy crawlies - I hope! We are also told we “cannot fail when seeking to reach the truth of being”. I sure do want to do that!
“All of God’s creatures, moving in the harmony of Science, are harmless, useful, indestructible.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 514:28-30
