HENOSIS! (Geek for unity).

My wife and I found a centipede in our bathroom today!  Hence this post!  We put it back outside where it belongs.  Watch out, they can bite you!  I let it crawl inside a used toilet paper tube to give it transportation to its home.  Centipedes and millipedes are ‘myriapods’ from the Greek word for ‘ten thousand feet’, quite the exaggeration!  Centipedes typically have no more than 200 legs, millipedes however have up to 400.  One species in Australia has 1,306 legs!!!

CREEPY!  Have you ever watched their legs move?  They are beautifully synchronized!  (Click on the link below to see them move!) They are the envy of every marching band, military drill, synchronized swim team and especially those athletes who have to row crew boats in absolute unity!  If you think about it, they look exactly like those centipedes whose legs stick out their sides.
The reason millipedes have so many legs is because they are ‘bulldozers’, burrowing through and under rotting wood, leaf litter and deep soil.  They are vegetarians in search of decaying organic matter which they help break down like our friend, the earthworm.
Centipedes are called ‘rollercoasters’ and are carnivorous.  (They can bite!)  They eat insects and believe it or not can move forward, backward or even sideways to capture prey.  If they become held by a predator, they can ‘drop’ legs and run away on their remaining legs!!!  The photo below is a millipede curled up in a defensive position to protect its soft underbelly.  Isn’t it beautiful!!!

‘Millipede’ photo by Draky Man CCO via Wikimedia Commons. 

I didn’t mention it above, but these myriapod leg movements are also the envy of the CHURCH, the body of Christ.  Aren’t we also called to be unified, moving in a synchronized way?                                                                     

‘How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!’  Psalm 133:1.

‘Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.’  Ephesians 4:11-13.

Jesus said in His prayer, ‘I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.’  John 17:23.

And the Apostle Paul admonished us to, ‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’  Ephesians 4:3.

GOD IS SO AMAZING!

If perhaps you’ve never seen the beauty of the synchronicity of a millipede’s feet, click on the following link, ‘Nature Picture Library, type in the title, ‘Millipede walking along a branch’ in the search space and be inspired!!! It’s worth the trouble.

‘Millipede walking along a branch, Orellana Province, Ecuador.’
Nature Picture Library