Terry Begler, ENDOW Participant, Colorado

Lent is for Lion Tamers

“ROAR!”
Standing at the kitchen counter slicing carrots, I looked up just in time to see my six year old leap from the ottoman and pounce onto the floor. He scampered up again and, standing at full muster, proclaimed, “I am a mighty lion!” Again, he leapt from the ottoman with cookie crumb claws scratching the air. Landing on all fours, he then prowled to the counter and, as he stretched on hind legs, nose just above the cutting board, snitched one of my carrots and asked, “Mommy, if you could be any animal in the world, what would you be?” As if to help with suggestions, he volunteered, “Would you be a tiger, a wolf or a lion like me?” “Hmmm…” Twinkling eyes, like the dawn of an idea, he prompted, “Would you be a whale, a sea lion or an octopus?” (I grew up in Southern California so he thought he was on to my way of thinking.)
I answered, “Tempting choices, especially the octopus…The better to hug you, my dear.” He giggled. “Honey, I wouldn’t choose any of those.” “Then what, Mommy? What animal?” he persisted. I set down my paring knife and said, “let’s snuggle for a minute.” So, I took his hand and we curled into the big comfy chair, and after we settled in I said, “If I could be any animal in the whole world, I’d be a bee.” “A bee…,” he repeated as perplexity furrowed his brow. “Why would you want to be a bee? Why would anyone want to be a bee? They sting!” “I would want to be a bee, but not just any bee. I would be a big, fat, fuzzy bumble bee!” “You’d be fat and fuzzy?” he chortled with a toothless grin. “Yes, I would be a big, fat, fuzzy bumble bee.” “Did you know,” I continued, “that the finest scientists in the world believe the bumble bee should not fly? Physicists, biologists and engineers have studied the bumble bee. They’ve weighed it, measured its wings and counted one hundred and thirty beats per second. They considered aerodynamics and every law of physics. In the end, they concluded that the bumble bee cannot fly.”
By the grace of God, not only does the bubble bee fly, it makes a significant contribution to our world through pollination.”
My beautiful sisters of ENDOW, this Lenten season and always, I wish you the faith of a bumble bee.