Spider Webs

It was my first hunt of the 2014 muzzleloader season and I decided to camp out in my blind for the day.  I’ve learned that when hunting it is impossible to continually stay focused on the hunting area watching for a deer to appear.  So, to help pass the time I always have a book with me and I also do a lot of nature watching. 

It is amazing how heightened your senses become when you are sitting quietly in the woods.  A single leaf falling off a tree and reaching the ground can be startling.  One piece of nature that caught my attention on this particular hunt was a spider web in the corner of my hunting blind.  The way the spider web glistened as the sun shone through it was beautiful and displayed the intricacies of the web. It reminded me of my third grade teacher, Mrs. Janelle Hammonds, reading Charlotte’s Web to our class.  The web in my blind did not have a Charlotte in it, but there was a small moth and several leaves ensnared in the web and it made me think about the spider webs of life.  The leaves entangled in the web had randomly fallen off the tree with no sense of direction and no ability to control where they landed.  In our lives, if we do not guard ourselves we can easily find ourselves trapped in webs…webs of hateful and negative speech, webs of lying, webs of self-pride, webs of greed, and the list goes on.  Unlike leaves floating aimlessly, we can chose to be alert and aware and not end up ensnared in dangerous webs.