Go to the Ant Thou
Sluggard.” (Prov. 6:6)

If Sue Isenberg was still around, I know she would have already read the book I started this week. She was continually slipping me interesting novels that she read with her Reading Club partners at Barnes and Nobel on 82th St. The book I started reading is called The Anthill by E.O. Wilson. Wilson is regarded as one of the world’s preeminent biologist and naturalists. His book gives scientific facts about the world of ants but he does it in the form of a novel.

I suppose I’m like most when it comes to ants…”a good one is a dead one.” But reading Wilson’s description of how ant colonies are formed and maintained and how each ant has a specific programmed task for the good of her community, has given me pause. Perhaps the ant I just stepped on and squashed was on an important mission to signal her sisters of impending danger. I say “sisters” because an anthill colony’s population is almost 100% female. Talk about feminism!

What I discovered about how ants communicate with each other has totally fascinated me. Ants don’t have eyes for seeing but their bodies are covered with small sensors that allow them to send messages to each other chemically. They have antennae that are used to smell and touch each other as well as give out messages such as:

“Come follow me, there is food.”
“Come quickly, there is danger.”
“Come and help me move this rock.”

They also are equipped with a particular odor that comes from their Queen so that they can quickly determine if another ant is a sister or an enemy. If an enemy, she will either attack or flee.
E.O. Wilson is very particular that we shouldn’t think of ants as giving individual humans lessons in how to live morally. You won’t find him quoting Proverb 6:6. But he has discovered that the sophisticated colonies they create can give us lessons on what happens when groups abuse their environment. Wilson gives an example of a “super colony” of ants that overextends itself in size and influence to the degree that it uses up all its resources and eventually destroys itself.“

In addition to his contributions in the fields of biology and plant life, E.O. Wilson is an advocate for the “greening” of America. Whatever else you might make out of what this is, it is a topic that Christians should be educated about. From Genesis to Revelation, we read about witnesses of a God who has redeemed all of creation and how each of us are called to love and care for all that God has redeemed.
Maybe that should include all of God’s creatures, even the tiny ant as (Albert Schweitzer told us years ago) who makes up 2/3’s of the weight of all insects in the world. They have evolved over millions of years. Compared to them you and I are the new kids on the block.

Pastor Tom