CHEER UP SLEEPY BEE

The other day, early in the morning, I was out for a walk when I noticed a sleeping bee hanging upside down from a dead milkweed leaf.  It is the season for sleeping bees and this year I have seen these vampire bees as I call them, sleeping, inexplicably, upside down.

But on this morning, the sun was just beginning to rise and when it did, it highlighted this tiny dewdrop suspended from the bee’s furry back.

It was just perfect.

Unfortunately, I had not brought my special close-up camera that morning.  I was carrying my more midrange camera.  In order to get a picture of the bee, I had to stand about four feet back and then try and zoom in.  It was not ideal.

And then I thought, you know, it’s a short walk, just a block, back to the house.  Should I go back, get my camera, and hope that the bee is still here?

So, I said, why not?

I “ran” back to the house (that’s ran in quotes because I am physically incapable of running), grabbed my special close-up camera and headed back to my sleeping bee.  But when I got back, I couldn’t find him.  I didn’t know if the sun had risen enough to warm him up and get him moving.  Had it flown away?  Luckily, I found another sleeping bee, hanging upside down from a dead milkweed leaf nearby, but this bee didn’t have the special sunlit dewdrop hanging from him.

Still, I was glad to get the picture.

But after I had taken a few pictures, I looked back at a nearby plant and saw my original sleeping bee.  He had not flown away—I had just forgotten what plant he was on.  The sunlit dewdrop wasn’t quite as spectacular, but I was so excited.  I turned on my camera, focused in on the bee, pressed the shutter release and … nothing.  The camera shut off.  The battery was dead.

For every story of the spectacular pictures I have gotten over the years, the rainbow over the rocket launch complex in Cape Canaveral, the pictures of hurricane damage that cost me my very first and, as of this second, only parking ticket of my life, the bobcat pictures at church, the baby swans swimming behind their mother in a retention pond, the flotilla of white pelicans making their way through the waters of the wetlands—for every one of those pictures, I have a story, but I also have a story for every picture I haven’t gotten.

And there have been many.

There is a scene in the movie The Princess Bride where Inigo Montoya is sword fighting with the Man in Black and Inigo demands to know the Man in Black’s real name, but he won’t tell him, saying, “Get used to disappointment.”

But the disappointment I have had over the years with pictures has not stopped me from going out every day with my camera and searching out moments where God’s presence is so apparent it leaves you speechless.

Disappointment has not stopped me from taking risks, leaving the moment, so I can run back home for a camera.

 

I did that just yesterday when I passed a leaf hanging from a spider web.  I ran back inside, got my camera, took the picture, posted it online and said, “Look, even leaves have bad days.  This one is hanging by a thread.”

Haha.

But seriously, ask yourself this question:  When was the last time you stopped what you were doing and paused as you took in the world around you and acknowledged the wondrousness of God’s creation, the power of God’s love?

My confession this morning is that the reading I used for today is actually the reading assigned for tomorrow’s Morning Prayer (shhhh, don’t tell anyone), but I wanted to use it (Luke 6:1-11) because of the story of the man with the withered hand because it applies so much to the world around us these days.

So in this reading Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees are standing nearby, waiting, hoping that Jesus heals the man, not because they think the man should be healed, but because if Jesus heals on the Sabbath, He will be breaking the law.  You can picture the Pharisees leaning forward, licking their lips, tenting their fingers in a true villain pose as they wait to see what everyone knows Jesus will do.

Jesus heals the man.

He doesn’t tell him to come back tomorrow.

He doesn’t ask him to prove that his withered hand is a true disability.

He doesn’t ask the man if it’s his fault—if he sinned—and that’s why he has a withered hand.

He doesn’t consider if the man is deserving of healing.

He doesn’t ask for the man’s papers.

He simply tells the man to come closer and stretch out his hand.

And the man’s hand is restored.

Healing the man is, as Jesus explains, doing good.  And there are no rules that bind us when it comes to doing good.  When we have the opportunity to help someone in need, we help them, unconditionally.

This is Jesus preaching radical empathy.

Now, what in the world does this have to do with bees, you might be asking?

Well, it has to do with this … I believe that in order for us to do big things in this world, we must first be able to do small things and then build from there, otherwise the needs of this world will overwhelm us.  We are not Jesus and I think even Jesus was occasionally overwhelmed.  Consider all the times He left the scene so He could go off by Himself and pray.

Before we can move out into the world, we must be able to address our inner world.  Before we can preach radical empathy in our own daily lives, in our actions, more than our words, we must learn to love God’s creation, all of God’s creation, on the smallest of scales.

For me, that means stopping to consider the sleeping bees.

It might mean something different for you, but I want you to think about it, to think about what made you pause today, where you saw God today, to linger in those God moments.

I have been researching sleeping bees.  They are able to sleep upside down by either hooking their little feet on the leaves or biting the leaf.  Their mandibles work in such away that once they bite down, even sleeping, they will not let go.

During this time of year, early fall, when the temperatures get around fifty degrees or so, it becomes cold enough that bees enter a state of torpor.  They are almost frozen still until the sun warms them enough to get them moving again.  The bees you see at this time of year are male bees who have been kicked out of the hive.  They cannot return.  I read one thing that said a good place to find them sleeping is in goldenrod.  And that all these bachelor bees tend to hang out together and sleep near each other.

As it happened, I knew exactly where to find some goldenrod Monday morning—right next to the milkweed where I had seen the other bees—so I went out, with a fully charged camera. 

My research was spot on.

There were dozens of sleeping bees among the goldenrod, hanging upside down in the cool, crisp morning.

It was a God moment.  And here’s the thing, I am pretty sure that those bees were there the day I had gone back home for my camera.  But now I was actively looking.

My prayer for us all this morning, is that we stop and pause and linger throughout the day as we explore where we see God around us.  It is a necessary prayerful practice that primes our hearts for the radical empathy that this world requires of us.

Amen.