This week’s Mediahuis/INM Irish regional newspapers’ column.
Michael Commane
It was approximately 8.35 on Monday morning. I was about to park up my bicycle to attend a meeting at 8.45. And just as I was taking off my bicycle helmet I spotted a woman with a little boy, whom I presumed was her son. He was about 10 years old and on his way to school.
They too were on bicycles. They were looking on the ground for something. Whatever they were looking for was very small as they were both giving great detail to something on the ground. Eventually the woman found it. What was it? A spider. She found it, carefully picked it up with her hands and placed it in a nearby flowerpot. They were both delighted with themselves. We exchanged smiles, they cycled off and I went to my meeting.
I was struck with their gentleness and kindness, their concern for nature. And it was funny too. I could never see myself picking up a spider off the ground while out cycling. But I was greatly inspired by what the woman had done. And I could see from her son that he was so relieved that his mother had come to the rescue of the spider. I can only imagine that little boy is in good hands.
I must have been a small boy when my father said to me that if someone is kind to animals you will find that they are also kind to humans. It has stayed with me all my life and I have seen how right my father was.
Nature is amazing. The older I get, the more in awe I am with the world about us and how it all keeps going. What’s it all about at all?
As I saw that woman find her spider my mind wandered to Columbia, where four children, aged 13, nine, four, and 11 months managed to survive 40 days in the jungle. They survived a plane crash in which their mother and two adults were killed. It is an amazing story.
Many commentators have said that the fact that the children belong to an indigenous community added to their survival skills. However or whatever kept them alive, little 13-year-old Lesly must have done trojan work in keeping herself and her three siblings alive.
The power of nature to keep us alive, to keep things going is really a mystery right in front of our eyes. And it keeps control over us all day and all night. Nature never gives up.
And then I think of what’s happening in Ukraine, the bread basket of Europe. Adults are killing one another. Every day and every night women, men and children are being killed, losing limbs.
Many will be horribly disfigured for the rest of their lives. Children are being separated from their parents. The suffering being inflicted on people is beyond words. And while all that is happening the share price in the armaments industry is soaring as it churns out more and more killing weapons.
I’m scared about the war in Ukraine. How will it end? But when wars happen in far off places I’m not as concerned.
Is everything we do and think controlled by our nerve endings and is it all as complicated and as simple as that?
I’m back thinking of the spider woman and comparing her behaviour to the ongoing brutality in Ukraine.
The mystery of nature is mind-boggling.
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