Sunday, Sunday

4pm is the new 6pm, given the earlier-ending days, so I headed out at that hour for an hour bike ride. But the real gemstone of the day was hiking at a local park with Buddy, the sun reminding me of my last trip here when the world was my oyster - or at least the lake at Prairie - where I glided through the sylvan waters on my canoe chariot.

We hiked this time against a lakean backdrop amid breathtaking fields of goldenrods and I thought with satisfaction how weeds could look so pretty. We garden and prepare the soil when here nature herself, with no assistance from us, makes these to bloom. I took in the satisfying mix of plants and trees and flowers and it pleased me to think that any given particular growing thing might've been inadvertently planted by birds, through their droppings. The seemingly random profusion of blooms was the handiwork of wind and birds and I enjoyed and applauded their efforts. It made me hungry to read some Annie Dillard.

Having gotten enough of lake and sun, I hiked to the dense tree-line and put my head into one clearing to take in a breath and a view but found my face full of spider web. Momentarily annoyed, it occurred to me nonetheless that the poor spider would have to begin her work again. But what else do spiders have to do? I thought. Then I recalled the monk who burned his baskets and I figured it wrong to think of the spider's work as meaningless. The tendency to regard nature as meaningless can easily leach into our thinking about humans, such that Terri Schiavo's life might be seen as worthless. God cares even about the least of his creation else he'd not have created it. At the risk of sounding more solipsistic than usual, perhaps the reason the spider spun that web was so that I may get entangled in it and think about God's providence. As one priest put it, "God's care extends beyond the human family to the whole family of creation. All creation is good. There is no dichotomy between the secular and the sacred. God loves all creatures."