"Weave the Web"

In the dark auditorium the large screen projecting the image of the speaker at the podium loomed above me, commanding my attention.  The mere dot on the distant stage was the eminent social commentator, Robert Bellah, who was presenting the esteemed WARE lecture at the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association.  The dark auditorium was filled beyond the capacity of 2,000 people gathered to hear the popular author of Habits of the Heart.

Bellah’s lecture expanded on the book’s main thesis that individualism is at the foundation of our societal ills - at the core of our inability to form life-affirming communities.  He asserted that Unitarian Universalists are extreme individualists in both theology and ethics. He stood alone and took aim at our sacred cows: The sacred cow of how we think we are different.  Arrows aimed at the heart.  To support his argument, he turned to the Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist association.  Arrows aimed at the gut. 

He pointedly asked us: “Why is the 7th principle, which affirms respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, the last principle on the list?”  “If you really mean it,” he asserted, “it would be the very 1st principle. The first 6 principles are examples of individualism.”  “Only the 7th principle,” he contended, “is oriented toward community.”  So, he aimed his question: “Why is it placed at the end, like an afterthought?  It proves that you only give lip service to the importance of building strong communities.”

When Bellah finished his lecture, silence filled the space.  I wondered who would be the first to rise to the microphone to fire off a defensive retort.  Instead, what happened next was quite unforgettable.  As the question period began, some one rose from the audience and began to speak in a voice that was filled more with wonderment than defensiveness. 

“Mr. Bellah,” he began. “I am surprised by your analysis because I don’t believe the placement of the principle about the interdependent web at the end of our principles is an implication of its lack of importance.  I view the 7th principle as the summary of all the 6 preceding principles.  As a summary, it is the pinnacle of our values, not an afterthought.”  The simple witness to the power of the 7th principle has remained in my memory.  We must more deeply comprehend the meaning of the 7th principle, what it implies, and what value it holds for our movement.

We are a faith tradition which is struggling with the tension between the needs of the individual and the needs of the community.  This tension is out of balance, weighted too heavily on the primacy of individual rights at the peril of losing strong communities. 

The publication, A Congregation Handbook, subtitled How to Develop and Sustain Your Unitarian Universalist Congregation, has a section called “Vision, Mission, and Covenant: Creating A Future Together.” It says this:

The movement from personal to community identity in a religious context may be one of the most critical concerns facing Unitarian Universalists.  How do we speak about a corporate religious identity while we believe in individual freedom of belief and while our style of life encourages such diversity?

One way to build community is to discover what unifies us and what symbols and stories might serve us well in defining that individual worth and diversity we cherish at the same time it reflects the faith community that we are.  I propose we explore the depth of the image of the interdependent web.  It has the potential to be that unifying symbol for Unitarian Universalists just as powerful as the flaming chalice. The image of the interdependent web engages both thought and sentiment.  It awakens the religious imagination, allowing us to communicate in metaphor about human experience.  In metaphor, we tell about the myriad of ways that we are like the spider, spinner, weaver, and web.  Like the spider, we anchor ourselves and create the threads across empty space to form the pattern of the web.

Wendy Doniger, Professor of the History of Religion at the University of Chicago, in her book titled, Implied Spiders and the Politics of Individualism reflects on the potential for the image when she says:

The spider is used as a metaphor for blind faith in the future.  …But we can use it as a metaphor for blind faith in the existence of shared human experience.  The mind itself, the basis of language and myth, is part of what could truly be called a World Wide Web.

The inventor of the World Wide Web is a Unitarian Universalist.  When pushed to copyright his idea, he said: “No.”  His conviction that the World Wide Web was a tool for a revolution in human communication meant for the common good and not individual ownership informed his decision.  The ethic of generosity, which this liberal faith values, guided his discernment. He did not act as an individualist.

Like the spider, we spin these kinds of new patterns of connection.  We are like that patient spider of Walt Whitman’s poem, which “launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them…”  We resonate with Whitman and take pride in welcoming those who seek truth.  We seek to connect to some one, to some thing.

The Danish existentialist philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard wrote about seeking and risking.  In his book, Either/or: A Fragment of Life, he wrote:

“What portends?  What will the future bring?  I do not know.  I have no presentiment.  When a spider hurls itself from some fixed point to its consequence, it always sees before it only an empty space in which it can find no foothold, however much it sprawls.  And so it is with me: always before me an empty space; what drives me forward is a consequence which lies behind me.  This life is topsy-turvy and puzzling…”

For Kierkegaard, the spider is a metaphor for the leap of faith.  We have all seen a spider hanging topsy-turvy; seemingly in mid air, until a light strikes it in just the right way; then we may glimpse a shiny, fragile thread connecting the spider to a point somewhere else.  To see that small speck of a spider, a mere dot in an expansive room, sets the imagination reeling.  We identify with the spider hanging on for dear life, legs wiggling, terrified, overwhelmed, and out of control.  This is the shared human predicament. We feel detached and alone when we face the abyss of an unknown future

Wendy Doniger says this: 

Like the spider in Whitman’s poem, … we must fling the thread of our thoughts ahead of us until it catches somewhere, …some other human being, to build the bridge between (them).

Finding ourselves in that “measureless ocean of space,” we seek connection.  Making the connections is the challenge because we are all different.  When we throw out the thread seeking connection to others, we must not assume they are the same as we are.  Yes, we are the same in that we are all human and we all seek good relationships; yet, we have to learn how to be in relationship.  The failure we make is to assume my individual experience is THE universal human experience.  The problem with that posture is we forget to listen, especially to listen for difference, and not just surface difference but that underlying deeper difference of philosophy, theology, values, and life experience. 

Joan Aitchison, author of The Language Web, warns us that: 

We are free only within a preset framework.  Nevertheless, humans, unlike spiders can think about the webs they have woven.  This sometimes gives rise to a superfluous cobweb of worries… We humans are like spiders who get accustomed to moving along some strands of our web, and not others …

This is the temptation - to act like we have always acted because it isn’t scary, unknown, and uncomfortable.  In order to build a healthy community, we need to move along some different strands of the web or a different web or perhaps even, simply - jump off; accepting the mystery that when we do just that, we are still creating an overall pattern, like the web.  We are creating new patterns of community where we challenge ourselves to risk living our individual differences in community. This cycle of creating anew at each opportunity for new connections will make your web stronger by weaving in that ever-expanding diversity.

The interdependent web conjures the SHARED experience of seeking, not the individual seeker.  The spider represents both the actions of the individual and the yearning of an entire community. The Unitarian Universalist community will take that leap of faith when we endeavor to clarify and to delve more deeply into our vision of spiritual community.

In conversing with spider lovers who have taken me to task for employing the spider as a metaphor for connection, I need to confess to you what they told me.  The spider is a very individualistic creature.  Spiders are simply not communal.  I wonder what it might look like if spiders would act in community.  Imagine with me what it might look like if the interdependent web was not a metaphor merely for the individual spiritual journey.

One early morning walk haunts me to this very day.  In the last days of August in Minnesota, the days are very hot, but the nights are increasingly tipping toward fall – already cold.  I wear boots on those morning walks, as the dew is heavy.

On this particular walk, I encountered a sight I had never seen before or since then. 

Just as I turned the corner around the school building where I walked, I headed east toward the soccer fields; I was blinded by the sunrise.  When I acclimated and opened my eyes in a squint, I saw the entire two soccer fields glistening with a carpet of spider webs.  Touched by the dew and sun light, they sparkled with grandeur.  There were thousands of fragile webs, each uniquely patterned.  The amazing part is they connected with one another across yards and yards of field. 

I wondered what happened to make those individual spiders rise to the surface of the blades of grass and weave through the night – weave not only their own web, but weave into connection with other webs.  Whether it was the cold after the heat, or some fertilizer or weed killer, air or land pollution, some thing happened that I had never seen in the entire 20 years of walking over the same piece of land.  Perhaps those spiders were driven by sheer survival instinct.  They rose from their hidden depths to the very top in clear visibility, ever doing what they did best, they wove and they wove an awesome work of immense beauty.

The gossamer threads, though fleeting, remain in memory as a fragile mirror that illuminates the possibility of relatedness in community. The strength and grandeur of an entire field of webs occurs only when the individual web connects with another and another, until the interconnected web becomes the interconnected webs of life.

We need to imagine ourselves as a web among other webs, creating a larger web of interconnection.  Imagine what it looks like when this congregation throws a gossamer thread beyond the walls of this building, forming bridges to others.  We will survive as faith communities only when we interweave with other faith communities. 

I am describing a picture of what a vision for your selves as a congregation might look like.  Notice it is not only each individual here forming his or her own web to interweave with other webs within these walls.  It is this weaving and it is more.  You weave a web here that connects to other webs, not only throwing a thread to interweave those individuals out there like yourselves.  You are also an entire web, which connects to other entire webs of communities.

Our religious tradition will not survive as a band of individuals who seek the truth.

We are a truth-seeking community of faith.  By weaving together our individual lives with others, we will build a community that seeks the truth together. May we gather the courage to risk weaving individual difference into new patterns of community. 

Walt Whitman (1819–1892).  Leaves of Grass.  1900.

208. A Noiseless Patient Spider