It was cool and gruesome at the same time. The fly that I had smacked with the swatter had fallen onto the bathroom countertop and he wasn't "quite" dead yet. He fell underneath the edge of this fabric basket thing that holds my blow dryer and brush. And there, before my wondering eyes, appeared a tiny spider that dropped down and began wrapping the fly in its silky web threads. The fly moved a little, and the spider came at him from another side. It was almost like watching a professional boxer take swings at a smaller scarecrow. Odd. Fascinating. Out of proportion. It was like watching the rawness of films from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom from back-in-the-day. My day, that is.
It made me think about what my friend Bob always used to tell me and his wife, "The devil is in the details." He repeated that phrase, oh, about 40 million times and I was never quite sure what he meant by that... until watching this tiny spider wrap up his ill-gotten fly. He had a pre-existing agenda and he just happened to be Right Place - Right Time. The devil doesn't have to be Bigger than you, he just has to be opportunistic like the spider.
In life, rare is the person that is destined to be a serial killer or axe murderer... a big evil, like the fly swatter that didn't quite finish the job. Much larger is the population that whittles away their own integrity bit by bit. A small lie here or there. An extra something you take even though you are not entitled to it. A hurtful comment about someone else. A motive that looks good on the outside but only because it's covering over self-aggrandizement.
In this season of running around trying to make the holidays "perfect," let's take the time to reflect on the areas where we get pulled off just a little bit. What are the spiders that are wrapping us up in a moral death-shroud? Resolutions to improve ourselves don't have to wait for New Year's Eve. We can do them every single evening all year round before we go to bed. Or, we can daily try to be more circumspect about the people, places, and things that have potential for us to go off-track. And, if the lights are on Monday night at a church near you, you could go fix it there. Don't miss the most important thing because you got lost in the hustle and bustle... and have a truly Merry Christmas.
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