Are You Smarter Than a Bug?

If you find yourself bopping your brains out, you might want to look and see if there are any window panes in front of you.

I’m always happy to find something dumber than I am, so I really enjoyed watching wasps crash against window panes when I was a kid.

Somehow my sensitive young mind couldn’t grasp why these insects couldn’t see that the bottom half of the window was open. The front door stood open also, because it was hot outside.

And the wasp? “Crash! Crash! Crash!” Instead of flying away, he kept bopping against the part of the window that wasn’t open. He was persistent, I’ll give him that.

I also imagine he must have been knocked goofy after a couple of bangs against the window.

Sometimes I would even (carefully) try to help him by knocking him away from the window pane so that he could see more opportunities to escape. As often as not, though, he’d zip back to the same place.

“Bang, bang, bang.” Continue reading

You Want a Blessing? Learn To Make Peace?

Peacemaking is an art of the Spirit.

conflictLittle sisters have a tremendous ability to pester big brothers. (The opposite is true also, but we won’t talk about that). Sometimes my little sister would run by and hit me. It wasn’t a hard hit but I would have pursued her over mountains, through waterless deserts and through snake-infested jungles to get her back.

Why? Who knows?

It’s not easy to keep peace in this sensitive world. Continue reading