meditation on ants

Two weeks ago, I was being occasionally bitten (stung?) by an ant as I lounged on my living room sofa. The ants were probably attracted to whatever crumbs I dropped. I had nobody to blame but myself. But I also noticed one or two ants in my bathroom. They seemed to be coming up from the door frame. I ordered ant traps.

My sister and I both have Zen Color, a coloring app, on our phones. She discovered it first and told me about it. There are multiple categories of pictures to color. Her favorite, I think, is any that remind her of our time in Japan. My favorite category is Mystery. There is no picture when you start. It gradually appears as you color it. The other day, a mystery puzzle featured colorful ants in a beautiful meadow.

I got bored and added another game to my phone which requires me to find dozens of random items. It's like Where's Waldo, but a little more sophisticated. And on my list of things to find in almost every puzzle? Yep. Ants.

All of that made me think about Biblical references to ants. When preachers talk about it, they're usually extolling the virtues of hard work and industrious ways. But I usually think of it in terms of the collective strength of those ants. I once gave a prayer before a banquet at a professional conference in which I said that a single ant can carry items that are many times its weight, which is amazing. But a colony of ants can move mountains. I wanted us to think of ourselves as a colony of ants, working together to improve the lives of our young people.

Tonight, I was listening to James Taylor's October Road album. In the song September Grass, he sings,

Do you see those ants dancing on a blade of grass?
Do you know what I know, that's you and me, Baby?
We're so small and the world's so vast,
But we found each other down in the grass.

Ants. Maybe they were biting me to tell me to get up off my butt and clean my house. Or maybe they were reminding me of who I've found down in this grass. You. And you. And also - you.