I’ve not yet seen the Dune movies, but was listening to a reviewer waxing eloquent and making the claim that seeing the spiralling sandworms was well worth the price of admission. My mind did flick to childhood days on the beach where I watched fishermen dragging meat-baited nets along the sand, hoping to lure a worm from its hole; and then with amazement as their dexterous fingers completed the capture. I suspected that the movie ones must have been scarier.

The Book speaks about many worms – some of them as scary as a maggot in a melon, and some of them as frightening as hell. There is the worm that makes a hole in Jonah’s leafy shade, and gets him angry enough to die. But the scary one in that story is Jonah, not the worm. There is worm mentioned in the laments of Job and David to describe one’s lowly and humble position. And the worms appointed to ruin the bread of stubborn Israelites who impiously foraged for manna on the Sabbath.

But then there are the scary ones, like those that inhabit the nether world and are said to never die, and who give not a moment’s rest to those who dwell there. Most people understand Jesus’ words to describe a figurative phenomenon in a non-figurative place; in other words, a conscience, forever accusing its owner of a wasted life, and lamenting the prospect of eternally enduring a place of real anguish and agony. Which is scary enough for me.