Books,  Church Life,  Daily Life,  Jinx,  Prayers,  Quotations,  Reflections

Small Mysteries, Large Voices, Small Mention

Behold — I shew you a mystery.

We have several hummingbird feeders in our yards, some of them mounted on metal shepherd’s hooks. We’ve learned that the only hummingbird feeders worth having are the ones with a water dam in the top, a sort of cup that holds water and keeps ants from getting onto the feeder. I have to keep careful watch on the feeders, replenishing the water in the dams because it not only evaporates, but also because some of the smaller songbird will drink the water in the tops of the feeders.

The other day I must have missed checking on one of the feeders, because when I came to it later in the evening, it was being swarmed with ants. I brushed away as many as I could, then sluiced off the rest of them with the watering can, and filled the dam. The next morning, there was no sign of ants.

So here’s the mystery. How is it that the ants know to stay away from the water-topped feeders? Oh, I understand that if a regiment of ants launches an assault on a particular feeder and encounters the unsurpassable cup of water, they will turn around and head back from whence they came. But how is it that they don’t keep up a continual attempt on the feeder? How do the ones at the ground level know better than to waste their time climbing the pole? I am told by scientific minds that the “lesser” creatures like ants cannot reason, and that they can barely communicate to each other. I do not believe this. I think the ants are able to tell each other very specifically to avoid certain wastes of time like the water-topped feeders,

***

Three brothers in Ohio were killed the other day when they became trapped in a manure pit on their family farm and were unable to escape.

Please pray for the Wuebker family as they grieve, and also for the repose of the souls of Gary, Brad, and Todd. I cannot imagine the pall of sadness over the Wuebker family home, to endure the loss of three sons at the same time. Such things are rare, even in wartime.

It strikes me that this news item was relatively obscure, and mention of the deaths faded from limited national consciousness by the time the funeral Mass was said this past Monday. Stark contrast to the attention and multiple funerals and speeches by celebrities given to Saint George Floyd of Fentanyl. The sickness of this country, which is no longer a nation, is on sad display for the heavens to witness.

***

The Old Farmer’s Almanac tells me that the dog days ended last week. You sure couldn’t tell it by stepping outside here. The humidity hangs on every leaf and every blade of grass, constricting the chest and driving us back inside except at dusk and dawn. The locusts are in full cry now, a childhood sound forever within me. How is it that such tiny things, like locusts and Carolina wrens, can produce such a wide and penetrating noise?

***

I’ve finished reading the collected letters of Flannery O’Connor and must soon return the volume to the library. I’ll post one more quote from this remarkable lady. I think she had a formidable grasp of her faith, much more impressive than many of the clergy with whom she regularly corresponded. I think that one could get a good, practical education in the Catholic faith just by reading her letters. She was fierce and canny and sharp, and she saw through artifice and pompousness very ably.  I hope to meet Miss O’Connor on the other side of this life someday. She was scary-smart and funny as all get-out.

Writing to Cecil Dawkins on 12/23/59, she noted;

“Your thinking about the Church is from the standpoint of a kind of ethical sociology. You judge it by your own dimensions, want it to conform to what you can know and see and above all you want it to let you alone in your personal life. Also you judge it strictly by its human element, by unimaginative and half-dead Catholics who would be startled to know the nature of what they defend by formula. The miracle is that the Church’s doctrine is kept pure both by and from such people. Nature is not prodigal of genius and the Church makes do with what nature gives her.”

~ The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor (1979 by Sally Fitzgerald, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, New York, NY — p.366)

Rest well, dear readers. Storms are approaching.

~ S.K. Orr