Pulvinator

Hadronyche Pulvinator

I thought he was joking.  He stood there in his National Parks Uniform, uniformly doing what almost all National Parks people like to do sometimes - scare me with how many things in Australia can, and probably, will find a way to kill me while living in Australia.  Can't go in the ocean, Spielberg reminded us of that; walking through the bush is a thing of nightmares, eight of the deadliest snakes in the world slither through the grass and brush; even the cutest kangaroos could be vicious, disemboweling their opponent while standing on their tail.  And if that's not enough, they try to scare you with stories of 'drop bears,' ravenous koalas that drop from the sky, giving up their eucalyptus vegetarian ways to feast on the brains of unwary travelers.  The last one's not true.  Too many people have tried to fool me with that one (but this was after I walked around trees for a good few months looking up just in case.)

But the spiders.

It's well known, I think, amongst the people who know me that I'm not a huge fan of arachnids.  In high school, to overcome my fears, Chad, Colin, Ryan and I went to the movie Arachnophobia.  Stupid, I know, but when your friends slap you across the face with the glove and toss out words like "Chicken," and "Bok, bok" (while putting their fingers under their arms and flapping their 'wings') one does whatever it takes.  So I went to the movie and watched with horror as John Goodman and cohort attempt to take out this rapidly multiplying, human flesh eating spiders which have an uncanny ability to roost inside people's mouths and noses.  Eeesh.

Four scariest movies of all time?
4.  Spiderman - are there really little blue and red spiders that insidiously inject venom into non-observant photographers?  Probably in Australia.

3.  Lord of the Rings - Return of the King.  Shelob and her slobbering fangs and ram's horn venom spike.  I didn't even know spiders could have one of those things.  Probably in Australia.

2.  Arachnaphobia - Flesh eating spiders - you bet, in Australia, no prey is too large.

1.  Charlotte's Web - What kind of sick mind writes a story about a spider which befriends children and saves pigs.  And, AND! then the spiders egg sack is carried around in the pig's mouth. What happens if he trips?  E. B. White must have spent some time in Australia.

So I have a minor phobia and the more people know about it, the more they send me things on Facebook.  Someone sent me a video of a spider egg sack on the floor, which when swept up exploded into a million little spiders.  Another recorded opening a car door where a gigantor spider was hiding underneath the handle and testing the outside with its legs (tentacles - that's what they looked like.)  Just when you thought it was safe to drive again.  People send these to me because they trust me, and they enjoy the reaction when I cringe.  It's a sign of love, I think, but it's not really fair because I have no retaliation to send videos to people who are afraid of heights - nobody's going to freak out if I show them a mountain; or even worse, what about those who are afraid of public speaking (the number one fear - even more than death!); do I take a picture of a crowd?  Will that cause them to sweat and panic?  Nope, I just have to sit back and scroll down for videos of human eating spiders.  That's why in Australia one spider is called the huntsman.  It hunts men.

Anyway, Tim, the National Park guy, was explaining to me about the Hadronyche Pulvinator.  Supposedly it's like a funnel web spider - the most poisonous spider in the world (Yup, you guessed it, has an Australian flag tattooed on its belly) - "But," Tim said as he held up a finger and dropped the level of his voice a few notches, "It's fangs are so powerful, it can actually puncture bone." He sounded like the late great Steve Irwin. Then he sat back and crossed his arms, smugly satisfied with impressing upon me how awesome it is to live in a country where even the insects (I know, a spider is not an insect even though it looks like one) could, and should, be one of the Avengers.

"So what you're saying," I responded as I watched my girls enjoying their time on the flying fox over a beautiful river as I listened to the sadistic National Parks guy regale me with awesome stories, "Is that I shouldn't put my finger in holes in the ground because they could get punctured by true to life Shelobs?"

"Ah, don't worry about it, mate," Tim said in his definite affable Australian way.  "Pulvinators have been extinct for at least fifty years."  He paused and dropped his voice again.  "We think."

I looked around at the ground near my feet searching for coin size holes.  "Extinct for a reason, probably.  You'd have to shoot those things with a twelve gauge."

Tim laughed.  "Not as bad as the Tasmanian devils, though."  Here we go, I thought.  Now he's going to destroy the beautiful image I have of the cute, cuddly animals who spin in great circles eating trees and talking with cartoon animals in kind of a sbplabedeepblablpeady way. 

"We have lost four people in the wilderness of Tasmania in the first four months of this year.  Well, that's how many we've recovered.  See, what happens is, people go out for a little walkabout in the bush and find that they aren't the bush ranger they thought they were and then they go and die."  Tim was staring out over the river at my girls flying at forty kilometers per hour on the wires.  "Then, when their corpse is starting to rot, the Tazzie devils can smell that from miles away.  They come and eat the bodies."  He turned towards me after the hang glider reached the ground.  "They eat everything accept," he held up his index finger again, "the top of your skull.  They can't get their teeth around them otherwise they'd eat that too." 

Dang.  And here I thought there was one Australian animal that was not out to eat you.

As much as I paint the picture of fear with regards to spiders, I actually enjoy hearing the tales about these amazing animals on the planet all vying for resources.  Australia is full of incredible fauna which brings a real joy to our lives when we see it; kangaroos are still a source of joy (except when they try to play Frogger on the road), koalas, when you spot them, are beautiful in their slow, non-awake way.  But the spiders, as much as I dislike their looks, are incredible in their diversity.  It's good to experience them in nature.  I just don't want to come across the last of the Pulvinators.

As we traveled throughout Tasmania before our NOVO experience, I reflected time and time again the ways in which the land and the context inform how we speak about the gospel of Christ.  Throughout the next few days I'll be writing specifically about our time in Tasmania, in my opinion the jewel of Australia, and how it relates to our theme verse from Philippians 2:13...

Read the context in the next few days from the full chapter of Philippians 2, but here is the verse:  ...For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.  Will and action.  God's work in you.  His good purpose. 

It's going to be a fun ride.

Flush

Sometimes my soul needs an enema. 

It's a really bad visual, I know, but the concept is right.  In order for a soul to continue to sense its connectedness to God, all the remains of digested life need to be flushed.  Sometimes this occurs naturally, or organically, but sometimes it takes an outside source.  I.e - an enema.

Let me start with this first:  I've never had a real-life enema and frankly, it doesn't sound that wonderful.  I've heard that some people actually volunteer for the procedure.  Count me out.  There's no reason on earth that I want anyone else to witness something like that, but with a soul enema, it's a definite internal process.

It began about a month ago...

I really enjoy my job - I work with some amazing people and each day when I drive to school with my three daughters chirping about which classes they will be attending during the day, which boys are doing idiotic things, listening to them laugh and sing, I think to myself, Life is really good.  If there were a pause button, I'd have pressed it already.  But, somewhere in the midst of the beginning of this school year, I think I unconsciously began to notice a fire blanket being draped over me.  Where once the blaze of spiritual life was uncontained, now I felt somewhat smothered.  I found that I was becoming short with people, not focusing during conversations and even falling asleep at importune times in meetings. 

To be honest, life felt heavy.

It's not as if I was perturbed, I just felt like I was in a funk and I wasn't even aware of it.  Not until we found ourselves at NOVO, the state youth gathering in South Australia.  We'd worked with a few of the directors before and we knew of their incredible organizational and faithful abilities, but we'd only done SPIN camp before which is a camp for younger children.  This was our first foray into youth ministry in South Australia with high school youth.  The camp was held at Cornerstone College, a Lutheran school in Mt. Barker.  Situated just outside of the downtown area, the sprawling campus includes beautiful athletic fields, a full sized gymnasium with six basketball hoops and an incredible fine arts center.  It was there in the fine arts center that we found a great locus of spirituality for the weekend.

 Already in the process of setting up, we met Brad and Paul securing pyramid shaped decorations to the walls behind, and around, the band.  Sound, lights, and a huge carved statue of spread-winged Jesus decorated the front.  Like most sound and light engineers, Brad and Paul were affable, yet reserved.  They let their artistry speak for them.

We were greeted by various different leaders, young adults who invested their own time, talents and financial resources to help high schoolers encounter Christ.  Christine probably had the more difficult task for the weekend - she, along with nine others, was called to be a chaplain for the weekend, and I was given the opportunity to be a keynote speaker for the conference. The theme was 'Unlikely Heroes,' a reflection on Biblical people whom God had called to do sacred, often difficult, tasks. 

A month before hand, I made a mistake.  I felt as if I had been growing a little too big for my spiritual pants, my ego swelling, I think, in believing that I was somehow 'specialler' because I had been asked to speak for various functions.  I think the Spirit was interceding for me to pray for humility, but I used the wrong words (in my opinion.)  Instead of asking God to give me an opportunity for humility, I prayed, God, humble me.  There is a whole Pacific Ocean of difference in the two.  When we ask God for moments to practice humility, we can recognize that we've made a difference and we give glory to God.  When we ask God to humble us, we allow him free reign to bring about a quite painful, or embarrassing way, to step down a few steps on the ladder of ego.

I had been asked to give a presentation at a statewide event with Queensland leaders.  I thought I had prepared enough and certainly, I, as a 'motivational speaker' should be able to download all of my 'wisdom' upon the leaders.  As the day unfolded, I felt a disconnection to them (of my own creation, probably); it was almost as I was speaking a different language.  It didn't help that the rain was falling so hard that they couldn't hear me and I couldn't hear them, but the telling moment was when one of the leaders put his head onto the desk and promptly fell asleep in the midst of a point that I thought was a particular 'nugget of importance.' 

A generous slice of humble pie.  Do I want seconds?  No thank you.

So, as we traveled to South Australia, I did not ask God to humble me; I asked for an opportunity for humility.  But I was nervous... Would they fall asleep again?  Could I bring God's goodness and fortitude to 120 high schoolers and fifty odd leaders? 

So I prayed, God, Speak your words through me, in spite of me, so they can see you.

I was asked to lead five sessions for the youth on unlikely heroes:  Joseph, Esther, Mary (mother of Jesus), David and Jesus.  In the next blogs, I'm looking forward to sharing with you my own musings about the NOVO weekend, the discourse on unlikely heroes which lead to, for me, the flushing of my soul.