A Persistent Bee

It felt like the last six years of my life had been pointing towards this moment. The sun’s warmth radiated our backs. In front of us were two classrooms, erected here on a field strewn with summer flowers. These rooms, adapted from shipping containers, are for outsiders like us to have a base for regular involvement in this community – the community to which I had sensed God’s call back in 2012. We were meeting the man who holds the keys to the community – the monk who is effectively, if not legally, the one in charge around here.

At which point a blasted bee buzzed relentlessly about my face.

According to the worldview of Tibetans, it was entirely possible and even likely that the spirit world should intersect with the physical world through a humble bee. Here we were, people of God, enthusiastic about making an impact on this community. Our enemy, the devil, would not be happy. Knowing my fear of bees, stemming from bad reactions to bee stings as a child, it was quite possible that the enemy would force me off the property with a bee.

According to the worldview of we scientific Westerners, I reasoned that something in my body must be appealing to bees … they always seem to buzz around me … and that this one was especially persistent and at a most inopportune moment. I prayed – as most Christians do when in the grip of a crisis – and asked that the bee be kept from stinging me. That would be exceptionally inconvenient.

Disregarding further thoughts of worldviews for the time-being, I threw my jacket over my head – not so helpful when in conversation with a monk – and, after a moment or two, left the property.

Was it a demonic bee that drove me off the land that day? I don’t know. But I do know that our enemy “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He is no less active in agnostic Australia as he is in Tibetan communities in which there is a real respect for and fear of the spirit world.  In my country, the enemy wreaks havoc in less obvious ways, including (in my opinion) an unhealthy pallour about our culture due to an overemphasis on immediate gratification. That’s a topic for another blog post.

I may have left the field that day, but I’ll be back. I hope to return in autumn when the flowers have finished and the bees are quietly enjoying honey in their hives. May all of us who know God resist the enemy and stand firm, for we are not alone in our struggles, as the apostle Peter encourages readers in 1 Peter 5:9. Though it is extra challenging to stand firm when a bee bizarrely buzzes around your face!