Commencement Address From the Cheap Seats

When I got home today after a beautiful graduation ceremony at my school, I got some lunch, read a bit, and took a nap. Then I brought my computer outside to look into this Sunday’s readings as I enjoyed the beautiful weather.  My mother would have been 89 years old today.  I think I can hear her voice in the warm sunshine and blue skies. 

This Sunday celebrates the Feast of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, so I started to look up the readings but quickly became annoyed.  An ant of what I’d consider significant size was roaming near me along the iron, lattice-work table at which I was typing.  I was tempted to swat him away, but then I realized . . . he wasn’t really keeping me from my thing, so why should I keep him from his?  Surely, I could be big enough to share the space and leave him be.  Pun intended.

Back to Basics

Back to the task at hand. I almost laughed out loud when I looked at the readings for Ascension Sunday.  It’s Jesus’ own commencement ceremony.

In the first reading, Paul details the jockeying for position that inevitably happens when the CEO or Executive Director or Big Kahuna steps aside.  Peter says, “For it is written in the Book of Psalms:  May another take his office.  Therefore, it is necessary that one of the men…become with us a witness to [Jesus’] resurrection” (Acts 1: 20).  Then Peter goes on to propose two candidates, Barsabbas and Matthius.  In other words, it’s the typical cat fight to identify the valedictorian or the graduate with the greatest distinction.  The disciples vote, and Matthius gets to receive his diploma with honors.

Grrrrrr, the ant starts encroaching into my space.  Can he not see I’ve given him ¾ of the table?  That I’ve claimed only a small slice for myself?  I mean, c’mon.  I bought the damn table. 

I consider again the merits of swatting him heavenward, but darned if that little guy doesn’t become interesting.  I watch him for a while as he skitters and shuffles, often at high speed.  I couldn’t move that quickly if set on fire.  And his every movement is guided by his two antennae.  He keeps swiping them forward and side to side in rapid fire motions of unimaginable swiftness while scooping – what? nothing I can see – into his mouth.  Or what I assume must be his mouth.

And then I wonder . . . do ants have mouths?  Or eyes?  Or teeth?  But I digress.  Back to Sunday’s gospel reading.  Maybe I am just seeing the world with graduation eyes, but Jesus’ words in John’s gospel sound an awful lot like a blessing at a religiously affiliated graduation:  “As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.  And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth” (John 17:19). 

The ant will not leave me be.  I look for a penalty flag to throw thinking he has to be guilty of “illegal motion” or “offsides” or something.  He seems interested in my computer, phone, and person.  I decide to remain annoyed.

On Second Thought . . .

Again, I reconsider swatting him away . . . but then, he begins his circus performance.  He actually stands on the back pair of his six legs and stretches out his entire body.  And at least once, I saw him use the ends of his antennae to clean off the rest of their length.  How is that even possible?  I couldn’t bend my limbs in like fashion to save my life. I start to wish I had a microscopic lens that would let me see all these movements up close.  And boy, is he fast.  I find myself oddly admiring his stamina and tenacity.  He doesn’t give up his quest, whatever it is.  He doesn’t seem to tire.  He keeps searching and marching and evaluating.  He keeps moving.

His delicate, exuberant dance has captured me.  I end up Googling “ants.”  Like I really need to learn about insects.  But then I think . . . maybe I do. 

Ants are super-strong.  Depending on the species, they can lift between 10 and 50 times their body weight.  I can’t lift even a quarter of mine.  Ants have two compound eyes but cannot see with them the way we do, and they have no ears.  But they use their antennae to pick up vibrations in order to discern where they are and what is around them. 

Ants have tiny brains that contain about 250,000 neurons.  For their teeny tiny structure, that’s pretty impressive.  But compared to the human brain made up of approximately 86 billion neurons, the intellectual divide is clear and decisive.  The amazing thing though is that ants don’t seek to use their brains independently.  They are communal creatures, and scientists have theorized that the collective brain power of an ant colony is much like that of some smaller mammals.  The entire colony may be able to feel an emotion even though individual ants cannot.  For ants, the whole is significantly more than the sum of its parts.

The complex, hierarchical, completely amazing rituals surrounding reproduction . . . you can Google for yourself.  The most interesting fact to me though is that a queen will remove her own wings after mating.  Wow.

An Interesting Address

I get back to my writing and try to forget about the ant.  I can’t though.  I start to think what a commencement address given by him might be like.  What advice would he give? Maybe something like . . .

• Use your antennae to feel the vibrations.  Our eyes and ears may not convey the whole picture.
• Community connections are greater than individual distinctions.
• Brains working together are better than brains working alone.
• Sometimes you have to check your wings at the door to fulfill your mission.
• And remember that you are stronger than you could ever imagine.

Not bad.  I look back at this Sunday’s readings and smile when I read over the last part of the second reading:  “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 John 4: 16).  Could the message be any clearer?  We are so much more together than we are on our own.  We are all part of each other and God.  The colony, hive, village, community is far greater than the individual persons – or ants – that make it up. 

In my mind, that’s a pretty good message.  And on this – my mother’s birthday – I realize this commencement address from the cheap seats contains a lot of the wisdom she tried to pass on to me before her own graduation into God’s eternal peace.