Spiders

We did a lot of traveling last week, to Niagara Falls to Dayton with nary a time for a quick car wash and my car literally got BUGGED. The car wash couldn’t remove all of the mix mash of bug guts; it needed some more than unusual elbow grease and with sweating dripping down my face and slow diving off of the tip of my nose, I stood and wiped my face and THERE, there it was; a thought and then a flood of words that found its way into a poem, not just about bugs on a bumper and crusted across my windshield but about the randomness of our living and our dying; the vast unpredictability of
IT ALL. . . HENCE: SPLAT

Is it all willie nillie
some hocus-pocus predestinated Chance
A random bullet
Out of control car
Avalanche
Shark bite
A fallen tree limb
An elevator cable snap
Plane crash
All
wrong places at the wrongest of times
ALL so unmathematically
equating into a
SPLAT
No one ever sees coming
WE
like the Severely unsuspecting unnamed Bug
SPLATTED
It was never my intention to
harm, maime, Kill
Yet, just the same,
SPLAT
It ended up a glorious Yellow
but so very indistinguishable on my bumper
across my windshield
And Now
just like that
as I turned on the Shower
I spied a spider
frantically trying to get out
of the fast sucking swirlingly
towards the Drain—too late
for a rescue attempt
The Splat became a deadly Splash
Proving it’s always more than One Way
but always, still, A Way
S P L A T
What Pow, What Splash, What Kerplunk
SPLAT
Awaits us
If a bug, a flailing spider
not exempted
what of us
I don’t know
But make no mistake about
Knowing it does

WHAT’S THE FIRST THOUGHT THAT COMES TO YOUR MIND WHEN YOU THINK OF SPIDERS. . .
K I N D N E S S
. . .right?
I can’t remember but one or two times over the past 27 years of Hospice work and 42 years of being an ordained minister that I’ve actually had the opportunity to talk with a group of men. MEN DON’T HAVE MEETINGS OR GROUPS. Three or four times, tops; this past Tuesday was one of those times. It was a group of men who gathered for breakfast after voting to hear me talk about TAPPING INTO YOUR SPIRITUALITY

The group was attentive, engaged and conversational. They gave me a standing ovation with my ending quote from George Washington Carver, “HOW FAR YOU GO DEPENDS ON BEING GENTLE TO THE YOUNG, COMPASSIONATE TO THE ELDERLY, SYMPATHETIC OF THE STRIVING AND TOLERANT TO THE WEAK AND THE STRONG. . .BECAUSE ONE DAY, ONE DAY, YOU WILL HAVE BEEN EACH OF THESE.”

Paul came up to me after this as I was standing around having coffee with these guys as they began filtering out of the room. He introduced himself to me and asked if he could give me a gift.
He told me that I had to pick one for myself and for my wife and then two more to share with two other people of my choosing
He handed me his typed out paper and told me that the first paragraph was his MISSION STATEMENT.
His eyes were kind and reminded me of my dad’s, not so much the color, but the soft kindness that glistened from them. He spoke softly and annunciated each word as he read the SPIDER INSTRUCTION SHEET to me. He offered me his hand and didn’t shake it so much as held it firmly between us when he told me, “I’m old. I know I can’t change the world, but hopefully by being kind to one person at a time, I can change them, make them have a better day and they can go and do the same for some one else.” I told him how much I liked his marketing plan, especially how he carefully implemented it so personally.

Any time I talk to a group of people I usually tell them that I am not here for the group today, I AM HERE FOR JUST ONE PERSON (and then I literally pause for as long as it takes me to look into the face/eyes of each person) I JUST DON’T KNOW WHICH ONE And I don’t. Little did I know when I showed up for a Men’s Breakfast Group that I WAS THE ONE that day.

K I N D N E S S
Comes to us all in so many different ways and when it does it often not only changes us ever so slightly but inspires us to do the same.
KINDNESS SPIDERS. . . ?
Well. . .here’s hoping it’s one web we all get caught up in
and never become disentangled ever again

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