This post was originally posted on my pastor’s blog at AbingdonUMC.net

Yesterday a large and foreboding spider jumped out from under our bathroom sink. I quickly put a cup over it so I could look it up online and figure out what we were dealing with. Henry was immediately transfixed. “Will it hurts us, daddy?” “Is it nice?” “Can I pet it?” I assured him that spiders are very good for our world but some of them can hurt us and I wanted to check first. It appears to be a type of Wolf Spider: Rabidosa punctulatal. It is a harmless spider so we took it outside and released it out of the cup. There was a time that I might have not taken any chances and just squished the thing, but that sort of behavior on my part suggests that I am looking for the worst instead of hoping for the best.

Obviously, I captured the thing since I don’t know spiders well enough, but I was driven by my hope that the spider was not venomous or dangerous. An upside-down cup and a minute or two of googling was a small price to pay to pay for that hope. It might seem silly to talk about a spider in this way, but our world needs every bit of hope It can get! in the world today I think we need to hold out hope and to look for the best in other people —not just spiders :-). What would our world look like if people who disagreed on politics or religion looked for the best in one another? Better yet, what if we could learn to assume the best in one another? What if we started from a place of hope and friendship?

I suspect the world would only improve. If democrats and republicans could stand firm in their convictions, but also assumed that the other had pure motives and wanted the best for our world: the United States would certainly look very different! What if we looked at other people in our community or, even, people we don’t know with an assumption that they are compassionate, skilled, and well-intentioned? I think we would find that we could disagree with them and still find ways to work together for the greater good. We could help draw out the goodness in one another and spread that goodness into the world!

Oh, and here is just a little something for fun: a journey back in time…and words about looking for the best in someone…