Some here have lamented the lack of serious spiritual discussion on Cuf. Well, I’m establishing this thread as the place for it. Please, only uplifting, serious, deeply meaningful stuff. Take elsewhere your priesthood ban or polygamy acrimony, Book of Mormon historicity wishfulness, or hereafter speculations. (Yes, I recognize this thread may well be very short lived on page 1, or even an airball. But I yearn to share, am constrained to do so.)
Last weekend I had a discussion with a couple of neighbors about which is more loathsome, spiders or rats. This brought to mind my favorite children’s book, a deeply Christian and spiritual story, “Charlotte’s Web”. Something ironic about “Charlotte’s Web” is that the bare plot outline appears so ridiculous and uninteresting. Here is Wikipedia’s rendition of the premise:
(Notably, the messages are derived from labels brought from a junkyard by a barnyard rat.)
Pretty silly sounding, don’t you think? Yet, when I read the novel to my young children a few months ago, while reading the latter part of the story I burst into tears. Did I cry over the death of a spider from natural causes? Of course not; Charlotte is effectively a human being; the story is such exquisite allegory it could be scripture.
The part that for me is excruciatingly sad is when Wilbur’s salvation is secure, he is closing in on his triumphal moment at the fair, and Charlotte is dying—all the while Wilbur is yammering about himself, so self-absorbed about his fame and his hopes for a blue ribbon and still paranoid about his own safety that he fails to realize what is happening to her, despite her many hints. Ultimately, however, Wilbur rises to the occasion, properly mourning his savior’s demise and bringing home in his mouth what Charlotte called her “magnum opus”, her egg sack (not the talking webs; LA here is a good example of irony).
How many of us have had someone in our lives in every sense what Charlotte is so artfully emblematic? How many of us can claim to have ever ourselves lived up to Charlotte's perfectly abnegating example? I submit it's a rare thing, even in our "enlightened" age.
Thus we experience the essence of Christianity, what Paul calls Charity in the KJV: two of our world’s lowliest and most loathsome creatures exhibiting unmatched heroism, quiet dignity and self-sacrifice while expecting no worldly reward (that is absolutely true for Charlotte if not Templeton) or recognition. I submit that thusly turning the world upside down is a uniquely Christian innovation. If you disagree, you might read Neitzsche’s The Antichrist. He thought so, and thus his eloquent condemnations of Christianity ironically are perhaps its most persuasive compliments, albeit in a backhanded way.
If there is such thing as “feeling the spirit”, it happens for me at such times as reading Charlotte’s Web to my children and bursting into tears. For it is at those times that I feel human beings are capable of more than nature’s call to the hunt, the bloodletting, will to triumph and to power, and drive to satisfaction of desires.
Last weekend I had a discussion with a couple of neighbors about which is more loathsome, spiders or rats. This brought to mind my favorite children’s book, a deeply Christian and spiritual story, “Charlotte’s Web”. Something ironic about “Charlotte’s Web” is that the bare plot outline appears so ridiculous and uninteresting. Here is Wikipedia’s rendition of the premise:
The novel tells the story of a pig named Wilbur and his friendship with a barn spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur is in danger of being slaughtered by the farmer, Charlotte writes messages praising Wilbur (such as "Some Pig") in her web in order to persuade the farmer to let him live.
Pretty silly sounding, don’t you think? Yet, when I read the novel to my young children a few months ago, while reading the latter part of the story I burst into tears. Did I cry over the death of a spider from natural causes? Of course not; Charlotte is effectively a human being; the story is such exquisite allegory it could be scripture.
The part that for me is excruciatingly sad is when Wilbur’s salvation is secure, he is closing in on his triumphal moment at the fair, and Charlotte is dying—all the while Wilbur is yammering about himself, so self-absorbed about his fame and his hopes for a blue ribbon and still paranoid about his own safety that he fails to realize what is happening to her, despite her many hints. Ultimately, however, Wilbur rises to the occasion, properly mourning his savior’s demise and bringing home in his mouth what Charlotte called her “magnum opus”, her egg sack (not the talking webs; LA here is a good example of irony).
How many of us have had someone in our lives in every sense what Charlotte is so artfully emblematic? How many of us can claim to have ever ourselves lived up to Charlotte's perfectly abnegating example? I submit it's a rare thing, even in our "enlightened" age.
Thus we experience the essence of Christianity, what Paul calls Charity in the KJV: two of our world’s lowliest and most loathsome creatures exhibiting unmatched heroism, quiet dignity and self-sacrifice while expecting no worldly reward (that is absolutely true for Charlotte if not Templeton) or recognition. I submit that thusly turning the world upside down is a uniquely Christian innovation. If you disagree, you might read Neitzsche’s The Antichrist. He thought so, and thus his eloquent condemnations of Christianity ironically are perhaps its most persuasive compliments, albeit in a backhanded way.
If there is such thing as “feeling the spirit”, it happens for me at such times as reading Charlotte’s Web to my children and bursting into tears. For it is at those times that I feel human beings are capable of more than nature’s call to the hunt, the bloodletting, will to triumph and to power, and drive to satisfaction of desires.
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