Today I am thinking about brown recluse spiders. They can be deadly you know.

In fact, deadly is exactly what they were this week here in Indiana where one man died in his sleep after what doctors have suspected was a spider bite.

There is a woman in a local hospital as we speak recovering from a brown recluse bite.

Okay to be fair, the first guy had been camping a few days earlier and knew he had been bitten by something and did not seek medical attention. Who is that fair to? The spider genus I guess.

In Haiti last month there was a torrential downpour in the interior of the country. Three men who were working on a construction site were recounting to me a few days later that the rains filled up the spider holes and brought the little ones scurrying to the surface for drier land. These were not brown recluse spiders but tarantulas. Hundreds of them, dime-sized still because they were young. This story was backed up by video of the scene. Watching dozens of the skittering arachnids on the screen made ones feet reflexively lift from the floor.

Everyone so often a friend, mentor or spiritual guide asks me what is the first question I will ask God when I get to heaven?

Hands down it will be what was he thinking when he created spiders? And that's what I'm thinking.