Sunday, October 7, 2012

The Secret of the Bee: Bee Resilient- Part I

No one seems to understand how he does it- gets his fat little body off the ground. His wings are too short and his body too heavy, but no naysayers can stop the bee's flight. I want to be like this small, seemingly insignificant insect. When everything in my universe, including my internal and external makeup screams to quit and to give up, I want to rise up like the bumble bee. Hebrews 12:1 tells us “since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” That is what I call resiliency, and for my twenty years in education, I have attempted to model and teach it to my students. Whether demanding excellence, critical thinking, or service, the goal was the same: go beyond what your environment and the people in it have told you is possible.
According to the New Scientist article, "The Flight of Bees," some aeronautical engineers and scientists set out to prove that the bumble bee really can't fly. One insect flight expert, Michael Dickinson, and his colleagues at Caltech, decided to investigate the actual forces at work during the insect's leap into the heavens. Scientists already knew that vortices rolling over the insect's wingspan gave it lift, but what they did not realize was how this phenomenon could explain how so heavy an object could lift itself off the ground with such short wings. In that miracle of lift lies a lesson of resiliency for humans. Sounds a lot like us. We look at family's origin, lack of credentials, abuse, divorce, learning disabilities, and all those things that weigh us down and already we feel too heavy to get off the ground. Then we look at our spiritual life and maybe our faith in God- how on earth will these little wings give us the lift we need above the mountains of problems which face us? But, we fail to realize is that there are great exotic forces at work: Christ in us the hope of Glory (Colossians 1:27).
If I had listened to society, I would never have graduated with several degrees, including a doctorate from a prestigious institution. I developed a speech impediment in the form of severe stuttering due to trauma in my life, (my grandfather who lived with us was murdered by his own brother), and I lived in world dictated by sexism and racism. My mother worked two jobs, one as a domestic, and the other as an assistant in the state school for the blind. Although she grew up sharecropping, she would go to school at nights and eventually graduate at the age of 50 with her teacher's certificate. At 70 years of age, she is still teaching, so I know a bit about resiliency as I have seen it firsthand. My grandmother raised ten children after she was widowed. My mother, the eldest, picked cotton, took care of his siblings, but still managed to graduate valedictorian from her all-black high school. Like the bee, you and I can listen to the experts or to the one true expert, God, who formed for His purpose and set us before life: "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11). Bee Hopeful, Bee You, Be Resilient, MJ

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