A wonderful sentence from the Philokalia (St John of Karpathos): A spider "has no possessions, makes no journeys overseas, does not engage in litigation, does not grow angry, and amasses no savings." (I guess the shells of flies hanging from the web don't count as savings.)
He describes the spider as gentle, still and helpless.
Well perhaps. Anyway perhaps closer to God than some of us, and do I hang (immobile, upside-down) in the middle of that "some"?
Whenever I stare at a spider I feel an involuntary and horrible hunger for flies.
But that is me, not the spider.
Stillness maybe.
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