Woven

As I wrote on the first day, I walk early in the morning, starting in the dark and walking into dawn. I like to take different paths, discovering new ones. They always start from the same place, and they always begin where things are not clear but still familiar. Gradually, I find my way. The other end of my walks is always in the light of a new day, and I’m returning home. Those parts are again the most recognizable and easily navigated.

One thing I’ve discovered in Southern California is that overnight spiders are very busy. I’m regularly wiping off the remnants of webs that cross my paths at any height. This one morning I was coming back toward home, climbing a dirt path up a hill, with bushes and Sugar Pines on either side. I was watching my feet as I climbed — roots stick up there. I was on my own, leaving the brief noise of cars behind me, and then in what felt like the last second, I glanced up.

Overnight work

There, about a foot from my face, was an enormous cobweb stretching across the path. I ducked just in time, instead of walking straight into it and having my face plastered. From the other side I could see the fullness of the work that had been done while I slept.

The thing was about four feet tall, connecting the leaves and branches framing the pathway. In the new light of dawn, the intricacy glowed with amazing beauty. I had to stop for a moment before moving on with my day and just admire the workmanship.

It occurred to me that someone was going to come along and either get caught in it or see it, take a stick, and slice it away.

What also occurs to me, however, is how easily we get focused on our feet — the next step, the next task, the routine of a day — and we miss the delicate threads of grace being woven around us, maybe even in us. We don’t easily see how God is at work in the lives of other people, or even in our own. We can walk right through, and even slice apart, work that’s been going on while we “slept,” self‑focused, inattentive, or worried.

I wonder about Abraham not paying attention to his family as much as to himself. He left his father, his community, his country, and became a wanderer, leading a group of wanderers. Maybe intimacy — care for those closest — got closeted within him. Maybe the pain of separation left him trying to keep himself safe from that. Maybe he wasn’t aware of God’s grace, and so God challenged him to connect more deeply with it.

Grace work is delicate because it involves the nearest and deepest aspects of ourselves. It is about change. It’s about growth. It’s about expressing beauty and insight. At the same time, it is incredibly strong. Spider silk, strand for strand, is stronger than steel. If you scaled a single thread to the size of a steel beam, it would be stronger, lighter, and far more resilient. When grace is left to do its job, it lasts forever.

We live in a world intricately woven with grace.

Those of us who have found ourselves undergirded by grace, lifted by grace, inspired, and even saved by grace — we can testify to the strength of grace in life. It changes everything and it endures. We discover courage because of the work of grace in our hearts. We find that we are not alone.

A scientist, Dr. Andrew Newberg, studied what happens to the brain when people pray or meditate. The amygdala, where fear and stress register, calms. The anterior cingulate cortex lights up, and that area is associated with compassion, empathy, emotional regulation, and the ability to feel connected to others. As we recognize grace and take time to consider it with God, we can discover a sense of warmth, belonging, and relational openness. This is where courage grows into action.

We grow into being people who both don’t feel alone and who are willing to show others that they’re not alone. This is God’s quiet work within us. We may also discover that God is doing that in others, and we may find them receptive.