Article April 1, 1996 Issue

Watch for mental webs

Emily Wright Jaeger

While enjoying a beautiful sunset on the way to my garden the other day, I walked through part of a spider web that had been strung across my path. I paused to observe the web, which taught me some interesting lessons.

First, I noticed how a spider cleverly weaves and places its web strategically to catch its victim. Sometimes these webs appear invisible until the victim gets entangled. Second, I noticed how a spider has control only of those insects that wander into its boundaries.

While watching a fly struggling in the spider web, I saw this as a parallel to the way sinful and materialistic thoughts act as a snare in our lives, pulling us more and more deeply into a kind of web of mortal beliefs. Thoughts such as hate, resentment, envy, jealousy, self-will, and self-justification are the snare. Not being alert, we find ourselves entertaining these thoughts and reacting to them, and before we know it, we're absorbed in this kind of thinking.

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