The Spider Web.

All of life is like a spider's web!

Reading Brother Ballestero’s blog today brought to my mind a portion of a book by Robert Penn Warren.  The title is All the King’s Men.  It is considered an American classic, rated the 36th greatest novel of the 20th century.

It is really written about a famous Louisiana politician who became governor of Louisiana and then a United States Senator. He was killed on the steps of the State Capitol in Baton Rouge, at the age of 42. His name was Huey Long.

In the book there is a young man who becomes his assistant.  On several occasions there is a philosophical diatribe on life and it’s long-range effects. On one such occasion the subject is the spider web. The young man’s name is Jack.

Jack is informed that all of life is like a spider web.  It stretches out and sometimes appears empty.  But just one touch and the entire web reverberates and begins to hum.  The spider feels it and out she comes to claim her victim.

It is an excellent analogy.  Life is interlaced and every act and deed we do sends the vibrations out through our life and those we touch.  None of us are an island to our self.

The sad tragedy of the book illustrates the spider web effect.  Jack is told by the man running for governor, Willie Stark, to find something in the life of another man to ruin him.  That man is a judge who has been like a father to Jack all his life.

Jack asks what if there is nothing on the Judge? Stark says there is always something!  So Jack digs in the Judge’s past until he finds something.  When Jack goes to the Judge and presents his evidence that the Judge took a bribe, he thinks it is over and done with.

Little does he know he touched the spider web!

Soon after in the book, Jack is at his mother’s house and the telephone rings.  He hears his mother begin to scream.  He runs to see why, and she screams at him.  Well Jack, you finally did it, didn’t you?  You just had to do it didn’t you?  She says Judge Irwin just committed suicide!

You just killed you own father Jack!

Jack had never known who his father was.  The Judge had always treated him like a son.  Jack was stunned!  He touched the spider web, it hummed, and the spider came out to claim her victim.

Life is indeed a spider web.

When you touch it, all of life is affected.

Thanks for reading today!