Kevin and the Bee

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who loved bugs. His name was Kevin.

His parents, who held no fear of them (for the most part), had taught him at a young age that all bugs say "Bzzz" and that it was okay to pick them up. As the boy grew older, he loved to watch ants, rip apart beetles (including cockroaches), and carry roly pollies in his hands. The roly pollies were probably his favorite. He loved the way that they rolled up into little balls. If he found one, he would carry it along for all his outdoor adventures until finally it would drop into the grass, uncurl, and walk away.

However, one day (yesterday) while at his grandparents' home, he finally met the source of the "bzzz" noise.

It was a pleasant furry creature that was playing around beautiful flowers. It had gorgeous yellow and black stripes and it buzzed peacefully through the air. Kevin was thrilled. His parents warned him not to touch them, but Kevin was fascinated by the creatures and he kept trying to catch them.

His parents finally decided that the only way he was going to learn about bees was to let him get himself stung. His mother, in painful suspense, waited in horror for the moment when Kevin would impale his tiny fingers on the stinger of the bee.

Kevin finally caught a bee, but to the shock and amazement of everyone who watched, he grabbed it in the perfect place: right around the thorax. The bee was trapped with its head hidden inside Kevin's fat, chubby fingers and its abdomen (with the dreadful stinger) sticking out. It was the only part of the bee that was visible, and it swung wildly around trying to attack whoever held it. Kevin had the protection of angels that day as he kept pointing at the stinger and drawing near to it and saying, "This?" but never actually touching it.

He was excited, and wanted (as he always did) to show his prize off to his parents. How could he know that his mother was somewhat terrified of flying insects with stingers?

As he proudly held out the bee stinger-first to his mother, she surprised him by darting away and running as he chased her around the yard. This wasn't normally how she reacted when  he handed her bugs and he found it confusing.

"Give it to your daddy!" his mom said as she kept out of his reach. Everyone was laughing at the spectacle of the toddler chasing his mother around with a live bee.

Kevin decided to do what his mother said. He turned around and walked over to his daddy, who dutifully held out his hand, expecting to get stung by the sweeping barb. His dad wasn't afraid of flying insects with stingers.

However, as Kevin released the insect into his father's care, instead of landing in his dad's hand, it flew into the air and resumed its buzzing around the flowers.

Relieved that no one (including the bee) had been harmed, Kevin and his parents decided to return to their home.

And they all lived happily ever after...until the next time.

P.S.

I have been handed some pretty interesting things by Kevin. One day he had something in his hand that he wanted to give me, so I held my hand out and he dropped a spider into it. I was a little surprised. Usually he gives me pieces of paper he finds and not living creatures. I let the spider go outside.

Another day, he came over and I found that he had caught a cockroach. The head and thorax were pinched between two fingers in his left hand and the abdomen was in his right fingers.That was a very dead cockroach. I told him he could do that to every cockroach he found.

Funny, funny boy.

Why I'm Afraid of Hornets

I love animals.

All animals.

I'm not just saying that. In general, if it is alive, I like it. That includes bugs, snakes, and other creepy-crawly things. I am fascinated with all forms of animal life that God has put on the earth. Wolves are my favorite, but I get excited when I see any animal. On my mission, I made people laugh when I wrote in one of my letters, "The Lord answered my prayers today. We ran into a tarantula on the way home!"

Which is why it is so funny that hornets frighten me.

They don't just scare me, they literally make me dance. In fact, my family calls it "The Bee Dance." Which is funny, because bees don't really scare me.

In fact, I like bees. They are useful and if they sting you, they die. Yes, maybe their sting caused me some pain, but they usually don't sting without reason. When they do sting, they give their lives in the effort of protecting their hive.

Hornets (or yellow-jackets), on the other hand, don't. A hornet can sting as much as it wants without causing any harm to itself. They are aggressive and fearless.

I've always wanted to know the reason behind things. If my parents told me to do something, I would ask, "Why?" I wasn't trying to be rebellious, I really wanted to know. If I understood the reason, then it was much easier for me to follow the command (though I'm sure this drove my parents crazy sometimes). I love finding out how things work and why people do the things they do. This is why hornets seem so terrifying to me.

My first bad experience was in middle school. Up to that point, I didn't have an issue with hornets. However, one day, as I walked home with some siblings and friends, we stopped to talk for a moment. I decided to sit down on the grass and rest while our conversation was going on.

One second later, I jumped up. Pain had erupted from my backside and I looked down to see a hornet struggling to get up from where I had been sitting. I took off running for home as fast as I could with my friends calling after me, "What happened?"

"I sat on a hornet!" I yelled back. This experience, though painful, left me cautious but not frightened. There had been a reason behind the attack, and so I understood where the insect was coming from.

However, when I was in junior high I had an entirely different experience.

I was painting the side of a building. I knew there were hornet nests close, but I was pretty far away from any of them. I wasn't threatening their nest and I was going about my own business.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain shoot through my left elbow. I looked down to see a yellow-jacket emptying its toxin into my elbow. I began to yell and dance. My paint tray flew and I'm sure it was a hilarious sight.

That really started my horror of hornets. I couldn't see any reason behind the attack, and when there isn't a reason, the creature becomes unpredictable. From that time on, I began to fear the insect. If one flew toward me I would run. If one settled down on a surface near me, I would move. If one was crawling up my sleeve, I would panic. If I was holding the base of a ladder for my father and one began to fly at my face, I would dance.

Even looking at this picture makes me shudder a bit. 

My father wasn't very happy about the last one, but he lived through it. However, it could be detrimental to my work. I had a hard time working hard when hornets were even in the vicinity. I couldn't focus on the task at hand, I was too busy worrying about when the next attack might come. I had to keep my eyes trained on them at all times in case they charged me.

I'm getting over my fear a bit. Now I can remain still for a while when a yellow and black winged-death is zooming around me. However, if they come too close, I will still run. Their sting may not be that significant (to me), but I can't help it. The fear is still there.

Sometimes when I watch the news, I see people do terrible things, and I can't understand why. In some cases, I don't want to know why. When those events occur, I feel fear. I fear for our world and our society and the fear is made greater because I just don't understand why someone would do something like that.

However, the opposite of fear is faith. The hornets in our world can sting for a brief time, but that is as far as their power goes. The pain they cause my be significant and unexpected, but the Lord can heal all wounds. If we have faith and trust, fear can disappear. We can know that regardless of what happens in this life, the Lord will bring us comfort and peace.

Hornets (both the bug and the people kind) can be terrifying. However, if I live my life in fear, waiting for the next sting to occur, I'll never get anything done. We can't live our lives and find joy in the moment when we're waiting for the next terrible thing to unexpectedly occur. Bad things will happen, hornets will sting, and people will make terrible choices, but if we have faith, the fear will disappear and we will live happy and joyful lives.

Maybe there is a reason for hornets after all.