I saw it because it was suddenly illuminated by the leaf-filtered morning sunlight. Shimmering.  Unusually horizontal. Across the path, with its spider a translucent, sun-shot little being, delicately hanging upside down in the centre of its radiant web, its ”feet” connected to the web like an upside down ballerina perfectly en pointe, eight times over. An arachnid jewel!

And we learn from Paul through Colossians that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge“ are hidden within Christ. Jewels of a different sort. Hidden.

Within the space of a few breaths, the sunlight fell elsewhere, the web and its creator invisible to me again. Yet rationally I knew both were still there. An unlikely image of these words of Jesus: “I am in the Father and you in me and I in you.” Developed in Revelation through the image of the Slain Lamb being in the centre of the throne occupied by God, and the host of faithful witnesses crowding around the throne in a webbing of worship.

How frightfully humbling to me to have a spider as my teacher.

The lesson continued. I retreated and  became aware of the undergrowth being peppered with webs, now visible, now not, depending on how the sunlight fell. Most resistant to being photographed effectively, their transparency (hiddenness?), too insubstantial.

Hidden in Christ – not really on display.

By the time I reached the station Incarnation, I could accept, rather than brush off, the trace of web on the face of the svelte Mary sculpture. And it seemed somehow fitting now that because of the interplay of light and shadow, I could at times not witness the intimacy of the gaze between baby Jesus and her.

The hiddenness of intimacy.

Fitting, too, that beyond her shoulder, an entire village of webs and occupants shone forth in early morning iridescence in the tangle of undergrowth there.

The whole scene, spiders and myself included, an encircling of sacred obscurity in the softlight poplar grove.