Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

The early darkness of the coming winter usually doesn't bother me, but this year I feel differently, and it's bothered me since the time-change. I suppose J. and I are becoming more than normally aware of our own mortality, as his mom, the last of our parents, seems to have entered her final weeks. Our oldest dog, Shadow, seems to be entering her final stretch as well, though I have no reason to think she's in any pain. We're also watching a loved one cope with addictions, and anticipating a potential job loss next year. These are all difficult events. It's hard to see past them somehow.They loom large, and we find ourselves in their shadow. Life in general is difficult for many people we know right now, as we wait for things to get better in so many ways. Waiting through sadness is harder than for future joy. Yet I guess Advent is all about waiting; in fact, it's about waiting through difficult times.  Who had harder lives than people in sub-Roman Palestine? 

Anyone who knows me well is aware that I am absolutely phobic about spiders. Spiders, in fact, have no reason for existence in my personal universe.  I don't give a damn what other bugs they eat, or whatever other good things they do for the ecosystem. Pffft! Spiders go with cans of Raid like mustard goes with hotdogs. A few years ago, however, after a guilty struggle, I did become able to tolerate a spider's presence on my porch -- providing it stayed at the uninhabited end of it, down by the wind chime, spinning its nasty webs down from the porch roof to the top of the woodpile, and with the assumption that the spider would conveniently freeze to death (or whatever happens to spiders in the fall) long before I would ever need the wood. I guess you could say I kind of feel negative about insects in general. Now, in my defense, I have to say that I am downright fond of certain creatures that don't make most peoples' top-ten list: snakes, rodents of all kinds, and li