May has been a beautiful, emotional kind of month already.
I told my husband on Thursday night that I feel like I’m in the middle of so many pieces of my heart right now…
An empty beehive.
An invitation to a writer’s workshop–contingent upon someone else dropping out.
Another birthday for my oldest.
Another mother’s day where my desire and my reality, don’t match (which makes me feel simultaneously thankful and selfish).
Accompanying my Goddaughter through the Sacrament of Confirmation very soon, and grappling with what that looks like to a younger child as the Denver Archdiocese has returned to the restored order of Sacraments and now Confirms third-graders.
Liminal space
This is the definition of liminal space, I’m sure, and I recognize both its necessity and potential for growth—I’d just prefer to understand it in hindsight rather than slogging through these inconvenient pulls of my heart, as ache and change tug at one another.
Swarm season
Early Friday morning, I got a message with an address, a picture of a bee swarm, and the encouragement to go and get it.
Imagining what this process would look like, I grabbed everything I could imagine one might need to wrangle 20,000 honeybees in a tree, borrowed a truck, dropped my littles off, and showed up at the address. It was easy to find in the tree next to the mailbox. I could see it from the road. I just had to stand there for a minute to take it in.
I suited up, because although generally docile during a swarm, I give critters credit to identify a rookie when they see one. Gently as I could, I swept the humming, living organism into my swarm-catching bucket and waited for the cluster of displaced bees to re-form in the tree. It was a little like catching water in a sieve—for every bee that landed in my bucket, it felt like others flew out. Eventually it dawned on me to leave the bucket open and let the bees communicate with each other. When I did this, I noticed that instead of going back to the tree, the displaced bees were turning toward their sisters in the open bucket.
After putting the bucket into the back of the truck, I drove six miles home to deliver them to my waiting hive, full of beeswax and honey from my previous hive. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Had you only known that this was on the horizon, would you have clung so insistently to that limb?’
How often am I this stubborn bee?
At one point, I tried to record what it sounded like to be in the midst of all these tiny, flying bodies. The video is not clear at all, it’s so shaky that the only thing it demonstrates is just how much adrenaline was surging through me while in the midst of this potentially scary situation.
There is something surreal about standing in the middle of thousands of stinging creatures, and recognizing both real danger and complete peace.
Thinking about it now, I can imagine the metaphor in it for me, too. God is the gentle beekeeper, slowly coaxing, patiently waiting and joyfully receiving every last one of us.
This is the truth I’ve been needing to recognize:
Life where there was no life.
Patience where I want to rush.
Opportunity to stand in the very place that seems threatening, and feel held.
Maybe this isn’t the heart-swelling mother’s day weekend story you were expecting. Me neither. And, there’s a grace to be found in this unexpected place.
//
Blessings this weekend on you, and all the women who transform the world around them with their love.