Mantis

A praying mantis just bumped into me and paused.  It was beige.  It was probably aiming for the light behind me rather than my shoulder.  I took it outside and closed the door.

I realize their name is a classic misnomer, but there is some irony in one finding its way to me.  I'm working on a CV for an application to a study pilgrimage, and find that most of my college extra-curricular involvement had something to do with prayer.  Or worship.  Or both. 

Or study. Or teaching.  A pattern, perhaps?  Seems to be. I sit down to write my statement of interest, and realize exactly how much critical thought and spiritual exercise overlap and undergird each other in my life.  Would I care so much about academic exploration and the search for meaning in what we people create if I didn't believe in God?  Would I believe so strongly in His unlimited creativity and personality if I didn't see the fascinating variety and variation in human experience and expression?  Would I be happy pursuing trails of implication and nuance in literature if I believed nothing at all mattered or meant anything?  Could I persuade myself to interpret words if there were no Word whose utterances gave interpretation to my life?  If I were faced with Void, Chaos, and Meaninglessness, and nothing besides, I think I would turn away from intellectual pursuits in favor of frivolity, since the continual search for meaning in a meaningless world leads to what else besides despair? And entertainment is easier to cope with and enjoy than despair.

Perhaps I don't believe in Order in the strictest, most limited and rigid sense, but rather in an organic, fluid sense of connection.  Not Order, but Connectedness?  And really, things only make sense in connection with other things.  I spent a whole semester pondering this. Pondering my ponderings.  We understand Absence because of Presence, Sound because of Silence, Dark because of Light, Hunger because of Satisfaction, and et cetera. (And I am becoming German in my capitalization of important Nouns.)

But how do I pack my fascination with Goodness and its intrinsic connection with Critical Thought, Virtue with Intellectual Engagement, Belief with Interpretation, all into a meagre 300 words?  This is always the difficulty: to make concise that which is, by its very nature, branching as a spider web and just as difficult to see in the dim light of 1.5 pages.

Too bad I can't just write: if you understand the praying mantis, you will understand me and let me go on your study pilgrimage.  So find a mantis and study her.