Deliver me, O Jesus . . .
I’m not into spiders. Not at all. There are some--the little, innocent-looking ones--that I can easily overpower, eliminating them without fear (Hey, I never claimed to be St. Francis.) But others, like the one I saw sitting in my family room the other day, I simply cannot even think about approaching.
I had just gotten up from my morning devotions, and as I stepped across the floor I had to suppress a scream (everyone else was sleeping), because this big (and when I say big, think too-big-to-suck-up-in-the-sweeper big) spider was resting on my carpet, looking at me with glowing eyes. Big, glowing eyes.
Well, I wasn’t going to squish him into my new carpet, even if I would have had the nerve to try, so I stood there, at 5:30 in the morning looking at him. What am I going to do? I asked myself, knowing it was MUCH too early to wake up my dear husband to save me.
As I stood there, paralyzed, the spider began to move. He crawled onto our wood floor in the kitchen. Well, that’s better, I thought, at least he won’t mess up my carpet--if I were to actually do something about him. Then, with all the brain cells one can muster that early in the morning, I looked around and saw a pile of newspapers from Sunday. Wondering if they might be heavy enough to suit my needs, I grabbed a bunch of them, and, tossing them from a safe distance, I flattened that little guy like there was no tomorrow. Which, of course, there wasn’t, for him.
I stood there looking at the pile of papers and didn’t see any movement, so I lightly stepped on the pile, just to be sure, and then went about getting my breakfast. (I’m really not as heartless as I sound, okay?)
When my husband got up a little later, as I was walking out the door to work, I casually said, “Oh, and there may be a flattened spider under that pile of papers, could you take care of it for me?”
Pathetic, I know, right? But I just can’t help it.
Anyway, the next day, our exterminator came into work. “Was it hairy? he asked me.” How would I know? Do you think you can see the hair on a spider from four feet away? I said. He laughed and went on about how he likes to play with those little jumping spiders and that I was lucky the spider hadn’t taken me back to its lair and eaten off all of my flesh.
Funny, very funny. He must be a stand-up comedian in his off hours, I thought, as I stood there debating whether spiders really have lairs.
Anyway, the thing I’ve come to realize lately, is that fear can be very paralyzing. It can stop us from doing what we need to be doing. Like speaking the truth, or moving forward without fear of being ridiculed or rebuked.
There’s a prayer in a little book I have (Mother Teresa, Meditations from A Simple Path) that begins, “Deliver me, O Jesus, from the desire of being . . .”
The first half of the prayer lists all of our temptations to pride, like the desire of being “extolled, honored, praised, preferred, consulted,” and so forth, and the second half of the prayer is a prayer to be delivered from fears, such as the fear of being “humiliated, despised, wronged, suspected,” etc. I’ve come to realize while meditating on this prayer that fears can actually become an obstacle to our discipleship, because when we are afraid that someone is going to ridicule us for speaking the truth, we may choose to be silent. When we are afraid we are going to be suspected, or humiliated, our very human tendency is not to act at all.
But the truth is, the Gospel message of salvation for all cannot be spread by people in fear, because, while it is a wonderful message of hope, it can also be a challenging message to deliver. If we can learn to live right in the middle of that prayer, between the pleas for deliverance from pride and fear, I believe we will find the freedom to act as a disciple of Christ, where the spirit of love can flow effortlessly through our words and deeds, without any concern for self.
If you would like to read the complete prayer, I have posted it on my website, where, I can assure you, you will not find any further reference to spiders.
