Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise.
The ant, we read, is industrious in the summer, to make it through the winter. The ant is wise. The accompanying reflection from Richard Foster, focuses on one of the traits that wisdom can help fend off - simple.
Simple is something that we want complicated things to be. We seek the simple answer. We make assumptions about others based on our mind’s desire to categorize and explain things in a simple manner. Good vs. evil. Good intentions vs. bad intentions. We read situations with our rudimentary understanding of things, happy to believe that our simple explanation or understanding is sufficient.
But things are rarely as simple as we want them to be. Situations and people are actually quite complex and intricate. Take for example, the ant. It gathers food for the winter. This could be a simple thing, the lowly ant, but in fact it’s an intricate miracle that ants do what they do, that bees do what they do, that the ocean, stars and mountains are as they are. There is nothing simple about the world in which we live. For that matter, there is nothing simple about the people and situations we find ourselves. We do a great disservice to try to gloss over the intricacies and complexities of the world in which we live.
So things are not simple. But Wisdom can help us seek and see simplicity, which can be paired with wonder. We see the ant doing its thing, and wonder at the mystery of the ant. We marvel at the simplicity of the ant. It knows how to find the food it needs (especially on my kitchen counters). We marvel at the lowly ant, not because it’s job or brain is simple and easy, but because with a sense of wonder, we are able to just relish in the ant coming and going.
So it is with my world. Things around me are not simple. My new home, my loved one, my gainful employment. To try to ascribe simple explanations isn’t Wisdom’s way. It doesn’t help me get closer to God, or understand God’s way. It doesn’t help me to ascribe blame or guilt for my loved one’s illness or their behavior. It doesn’t help to explain my unexpected free time.
And I can just relish in the fact that all of these things are. I am living in a new city. I will be working on this house project. I will shepherd my loved one through the next few years. I will figure out my paying job and ministry. I will live, and breathe, and appreciate the simplicity of today, knowing full well there is nothing simple about any of it. I don’t need to understand all of the intricacies, but I certainly shouldn’t seek a simple explanation or understanding.
Wisdom helps me acknowledge the deep complexities in my world, while at the same time allowing me to rest easily on top, appreciating the simplicity of just floating. It reminds me of being on a raft in a pond. I don’t necessarily understand or know everything that goes on under the water’s surface. I shouldn’t presume it’s just like my bathtub, a simple container filled with water. But I can float on top, acknowledging the wonders below while being extremely grateful for the simplicity of floating on top.
This morning, I’m thinking about how to use Wisdom to enjoy more simplicity, without trying to fit the world into neat and tidy and simple boxes.
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