Consider the Fire Ant

I can’t get fire ants off my mind. Maybe if I write about them, they will leave.

If you haven’t had a chance to meet one, do not add it to your bucket list. Fire ants are different from their cousins.  The pesky black ant crawls across your red checked tablecloth to share your picnic. The tiny sugar ant carouses like a Bourbon Street tourist over your kitchen counter.

The fire ant races up your ankle with an army of fellow soldiers, and all together now, begins warfare.  They bite to hang on while inserting their stinger with a syringe of venom.  Then they do it again and again and again until you strip off your socks and shoes and brush them away.  Except for the ones that are already between your toes or up your pants.  

A few minutes of burning and then days of itching, both like unquenchable fires. Every summer I have to step in a hidden fire ant hill to learn my lesson for the rest of the year.  Last week was my annual reminder. But that is not why I can’t get them out of my mind.

The fire ant picture tormenting me started with the recent repeated flooding in my area. When floods overtake a fire ant colony, the colony members grab hold of each other and interlock legs. Then they begin to float in large ribbons or balls.  They protect their queen and larvae keeping them dry in the center. The rest of the ants rotate taking turns underwater.

Wise ole King Solomon used the ant as a lesson in work ethic.

Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. [Proverbs 6:6-8]

If Solomon had visited south Texas, he might have used our fire ants as a lesson in how to support each other. Teaching us to take turns treading water while others rest or catch their breath. Then letting others do that for us when we need to come up for air.

Our colony of humanity has had so many floods to fight lately.  Shootings, bombings, refugee drownings, starvation, floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes. When the tragedy of the day is far away, it’s easy to say “how terrible” from the normalcy of our own ant hills. We pause and move on to the peripheral issues and opinions surrounding each tragedy. 

Yet God teaches us to

Bear one another’s burdens. Galations 6:2

Bring good news to the poor. Isaiah 61:1

Bind up the brokenhearted. Isaiah 61:1

Free the captives. Isaiah 61:1

Visit the orphans and widows. James 1:27

Weep with them that weep. Romans 12:15

Lord, teach me to be more like the fire ant. Help me interlock arms with my fellow humans to bear today's burdens. Let me not fall into complacency. Slap me when I look away from the news stories that are too difficult to watch. Prod me when I think there is nothing I can do. Help me to love others as you love them.