Bugs

Spring has “technically” arrived. We keep telling the weather, “Hey, just so you know: it’s spring. Right here, according to the calendar, we have proof: winter has past and spring has arrived.” The weather hasn’t heard us. But our kids have. After counting the days until spring for about two months now, they’re no longer going to let the bitter cold keep them from opening the sand box, finding the outdoor toys, and playing out there. It’s forty degrees and the wind is fierce, but Andrew and Melanie have been out for some time now.

Much of their time has been spent on one of their all time favorite activities: looking for bugs. They name their bugs, make “homes” for them, and attend to them carefully enough to ensure a good and early death.

As I watch their glee with bugs, I can’t help but recall what felt like a metaphor played out before us when we were visiting my mother’s side of the family a couple of years ago. Since we were already so far “east” (Louisiana), why not head to Virginia to visit family we never see? We naïve Northwesterners didn’t expect a 17 hour drive to the DC area, but the time was very worth it. Besides enjoying good food, good company, and good laughs with family we rarely see, I also enjoyed a living parable our God – comedian and chess player – masterfully played out before my eyes.

We were all gathered at my cousin Ed and Pam’s gorgeous home. After dinner, my cousin Linda pressed 8 year old Oliver to play with 6 year old Andrew in place of his cool older cousins, 11 & 14. Poor Oliver made a valiant attempt to get Andrew interested in a myriad of games or toys, especially Monopoly, to no avail. That my cousins and their kids are quite well endowed with high-tech toys, games and technology adds to the humor in this scene because Andrew was far more interested in what youngest cousins, Melanie and Natalie – then 3 ½, both of them – had discovered: bugs. Much to Pam’s chagrin, their elegant home apparently had plenty of them, and they brought great delight not only to Melanie and Natalie, but also to Andrew.

After one more attempt to interest Andrew in Monopoly, Oliver found his mom, grimaced and said, “He wants to look for bugs.” He needed no logic, as Linda should surely know there is something terribly “uncool” about looking for bugs. No self-respecting 8 year old should be asked to demean himself that much. Linda should know that. Apparently, she did, and she released him.

For all the expense of their many toys, their spacious land, and their large home, all the youngest children wanted to do was look for bugs. And there was no question in anybody’s mind who was having the best time. The lesson of the parable was clear: “The joy of life is as simple as looking for bugs.”

Is the parable of Oliver and Andrew a picture of what happens as children grow into adulthood? That the tide mysteriously shifts from wonder of nature’s simplest gifts to a love for the Ultimate Game of American Materialism? Perhaps this is part of what Jesus meant when He said we must “become like little children to enter the kingdom.”

Generally, we hear only hear in part. We listen long enough to hear the Church’s message of “salvation” and do the basics to secure a nice place in the afterlife, but we keep living with the Monopoly board before us and miss the life God has for us here on earth, disguised in the simplest of treasures.

We pray for a silver lining to our current economic downturn: may we finally rediscover God’s greatest gifts of all. Blessings of cost-free treasures to all.