The Dance

The thing is - nobody walks into the fragile little thing you're building in faith without being disturbed by it. Even those who are just minding their own business and never intended to bump into your thing. 

If you need evidence of that, just look for any surveillance footage that might exist of someone walking into a spider web. Nobody walks into a spider web unaffected. 

A little dance always ensues. 

First, there is the gut-level, crocodile brain reaction of just trying to get it off you. Just trying to pull off as much of this thing that you just felt hit your face as you can, even though you still can't see it and probably wouldn't feel it in your fingers even if you were touching it. 

It's the reaction we all have when we run into a disturbance in the force, something that interrupts our path, something that shocks our system. We start feeling around, trying to get to it, to trying to touch it, trying to figure it out. What was that? Where is it? Is it on me? 

Then, there's all the looking around. Looking over our shoulder. Looking high. Looking low. Scanning the environment, trying to figure out what the source is. What made this thing? Who put it here? Where is the little bugger? 

And finally, the recognition that none of that is even enough. For a little while longer, even far removed from that place, it's not uncommon to feel..."buggy." To still feel the memories of that thing on you, to have the sensation of having walked through it, to run your fingers through your hair or across your cheek one more time. To turn your head and check your shoulder and make sure there's no spider on it...even three hours later. To spend the rest of your day grasping at something you still can't find, but can't shake the feeling of. If even so much as a single one of your hairs falls out of place and drifts against your arm, you are naturally just a little more jumpy about it. What was that? 

That's the kind of reaction I want others to have when they bump into the fragile little things I'm building by faith...even if by accident. 

I want them to know they've encountered something. 

I want them to start looking around, paying more attention to their surroundings, opening their eyes to see where it might be coming from. 

And I want them to have a little part of them that just can't shake it, especially if that's the little nag that's going to get them to start thinking about, looking for, understanding, believing in, trusting in, hoping in greater things. In God. 

And...

Part of me wants surveillance video.

Because I'm fairly certain that although the I-just-walked-into-a-big-invisible-spider-web dance is at least somewhat universal, I'm also fairly certain that it never gets less funny. Because we all know what's happening. 

Someone just got disturbed.