Noiseless, Patient Spiders

Seems like lately Bart's sermons have been so good that I am writing a blog post about them every Monday!  Yesterday he talked bout love -- and how we are all connected.

He started by reading a Walt Whitman poem that my friend Michelle shared with me yesterday called a noiseless, patient spider.

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

I know that is pretty heavy stuff, but it is good.   Our souls, like a spider, are casting out filaments hoping that they will reach others to make a connection. He also read this quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.:  “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be ... “  I'm not sure that explaining those two things further would make them more meaningful.  In fact, I think they would have less than an impact if explained. So read them again :-)