The Gift and the Warning

Al Sikes

Lessons from the Bees

The new hives are heavy with stores of honey for the impending winter. The mouse guards are in place. Field mice will not be intruding on the bees nor will the bees lack for food.

Winter can be unforgiving, especially in a world occupied by both bees and beekeepers. Bees know their job. They organize for it with sublime results. But my job as beekeeper is not without consequence.

One of the true joys of life is that first spoonful of honey following the harvest. But that moment of joy is now two seasons away for me. I could have harvested honey in September, but not without risking the delicate balance that is the crucial natural link in our relationship.

Francis Collins finds the language of God in intricate DNA patterns, but I don’t need to look beyond pollination and honey. Nature is God’s gift and warning. We often enjoy the gift while paying little attention to the warning. But it is no accident that in biblical writings, “nature” is often linked with sin, as in “our sinful nature.”

Some years ago I was talking with a friend about the possibility of moving to New York City. He referred to New York as “the great indoors.” And increasingly life is lived indoors or in over-manicured and domesticated outdoor settings. Paddle boats on the local lake are a far cry from canoes on a quiet stream.

For most of us, nature is yet another packaged consumer experience. God’s warning is masked or muted. We build homes in flood plains assured that our levies and insurance policies will protect us. Those who do navigate our rivers don helmets and sit on the edge of a raft. Nature rushes by while the passengers enjoy one more adrenaline rush.

God’s gift is pollination and honey. God’s warning is: exploit the bees and you lose the gift. This wonderful lesson and ultimate truth could be gleaned from Aesop’s fables, but nothing moves the heart and mind more than learning while doing. Humanity labors to build ever more intricate hypotheses about life and its perpetuation, but many of nature’s vivid truths are better revealed over time in responsible, humble cultivation—and enjoyment.

I am drawn to quiet rivers and streams. They are glorious in their beauty and they reflect God’s truth in their delicate and fruitful ecology. Their watersheds, though, are often a story of human disregard. As we look upstream we see this disregard encroaching. Much of life is downstream; what happens upstream is determinative.

We often seem oblivious to the causes of the detritus downstream and the unwitting role we play. We want “life, liberty, and happiness” but not “under God.”

I have no definite prescription even though my mind fights for one. We live in angst about nature because we are estranged from it and the lessons of God it reveals. When I talk to others about beekeeping, often the first question is “how often are you stung?” But this is a downstream question. We are not mere passengers on a guided tour; life’s sweetness does not originate on a store shelf and wait for our convenience. Learning true gratitude for God’s gift of nature includes learning to respect its warnings.

To find our place and role in God’s world, we must look upstream to God’s message of love—and what it requires of us—and then probe our experiences and relationships to determine its truth and relevance. We can find truth; we don’t need to wait for scientists to let us know what to believe—or how to act.

Dallas Willard closes his recent book Knowing Christ Today with the ultimate lesson from the book of Proverbs. I certainly cannot do better.

If you indeed cry out for insight,
And raise your voice for understanding:

If you seek it like silver,
And search for it as for hidden treasures—

Then you will understand the fear of the Lord
And find the knowledge of God.

Proverbs 2:3–5

Al Sikes is Chairman of The Trinity Forum and former Chairman of the FCC. He lives on a river on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Features, Being Human, Environment and Creation, Tue 24 Nov 2009