The Ant and the Butterfly

The Alcon blue butterfly of Western Europe has a particular quirk: by coating it's larvae in a deceptive chemical coating, it can trick local ants into thinking that the babies belong to them. The ants, responsible and hardworking critters that they are, promptly carry them into their own nest and set about raising the young as their own, not realizing until the butterflies emerge, wings and all, that they've been duped.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I can be a little ant-like myself in this respect.

Well-intentioned and sincere, I've pulled all sorts of emotional, practical, and spiritual "larvae" into my family's nest. 'Looks like my problem, sounds like my problem, feels like my problem ~ it must be my problem. I grab 'hold of the need in front of me (help in the church nursery, leadership of a woman's group, care giving for a lonely child, admin tasks for a new endeavor, planning for a social event, financial care of a perpetually struggling family...) and truck it right on home into the middle of my own domestic haven. I don't pause to check in with the rest of the colony about the arrival of the new addition ~ I just assume we'll all pitch in to take good care of it.

Maybe you're more like the butterflies? Maybe you're more inclined to drop your cares on someone else's doorstep, taking for granted that they'll be nurtured to maturity?

But about those ants and their assumed role as nursery maids: their adoption of another critter's responsibility can lead to their own demise. Because they sense the presence of young in their nest, they instinctively stop producing babies of their own. If enough Alcon larvae are present, the ants don't make any ant babies for a season.

Before long, the numbers in the nest take a hit and, eventually, the colony can die out completely for lack of reproduction.

Over a game of table scrabble and a cup of something, a friend recently shared some new-found insights about the level of stress in her life. She was making a list, she said, of all that she does in a day that is required but is less than satisfying. A parallel list was devoted to the things she attends to that she loves to do ~ activities that she feels have long-term value. The drudgery to joy ratio was something like 85:15!

As she was talking, my thoughts turned to the stress-saturated lives of my friends. We do so much! So much good. So much right. So much that's necessary. A lot of burden sharing that is Christlike and God-directed. But I wonder if there might be a few intruding larvae that could be punted from our nests?

Are there things we've adopted as our own burdens that are not ours to shoulder?

If we don't take an honest look at the stresses in our lives and rid our homes and our families of the leach-like ones, what will happen to our productivity in the future? If our energy and attention and resources are all being funnelled into care for situations that are not ours to tend to, what will be left for our real dependents? Will we die off (all the while doing good and taking care) attending to things that were better left to someone else?

What will happen in our little colonies if we simply, simply tend to our God-chosen, right-now, burden bearing? Caring is tricky business! Can we tune our ears carefully to the Comforter's voice, quickly responding when He says, "Go, help, give,"? Can we learn to detect interloping stresses before we devote too much time and heart to them, saving our best service for the God-cares?

Scientists don't hold out much hope for those adoptive ants. They're certain that as long as the Alcon's are reproducing they're going to continue to dupe various colonies into feeding and raising their young.

As for us, maybe a quick larvae inventory will see our respective nests clear of con artists and home to the tasks, joys, burdens, and dreams set out for us by the Maker of ants and butterflies.

~ Galatians 6:2 - 10 ~