Thursday, August 27, 2009

Wasps...


We have a wasps nest in the eaves of the house. It's been there for a few weeks now. I haven't done anything about it until Peter was stung completely out of the blue by one last week.

This afternoon, the wasp man came to deal with the nest. I have to say that part of me was reluctant to do anything as wasps are hopefully munching on the pests on the runner beans etc. I am also now aware that the nest will die out in the Autumn. And yet, the wasp man came, he sprayed stuff, he left, £45 richer. I hope it does the job. My kids will be pleased.

And yet I feel guilty. The wasps didn't really inconvenience us in any way and they were doing some good in the garden. They have their place in the grand scheme of things... so do I. Yet I am able to exercise power over them - with a little help of course.

In Genesis 1, God gives 'dominion' to humanity over the animals, birds and insects etc. Did what I did demonstrate dominion. Hmmm... perhaps not...

God calls humanity, in Genesis 1, to a stewardship of creation, which hopefully jolts the faithful awake in the face of Climate Change, to modify our lives accordingly - in terms of the big things - recycling, green energy, using less, driving and flying less, etc. Dominion as stewardship though should also govern the way I react in small ways too, such has whether I squash the spider or let it out, or what I do (or not) about the wasp's nest.

In Matthew 6:25ff, Jesus suggests that God loves the non-human creation too. In fact, perhaps more powerfully in John 3:16. Christ came to demonstrate God's love in action to the world, in the world, and for the benefit of the whole world... even wasps.

It may not matter to me too much that I squash the spider or employ the services of wasp man. I may feel no sorrow. They don't matter to me. They are pests...

Pests they may be, but they matter to God.

I am all for changed lifestyles in terms of climate change, and I believe that our response is a human and spiritual one, but...

I realise that my thoughtless 'oh-well-it-doesn't-matter-ness' about spiders and wasps shows my contempt of the God who made them and me.

Lord have mercy.

1 comment:

Barb Le-Tallec said...

Yes a tough one indeed. I myself do my best to not harm anything, as I am amazed by ALL creation and look at it in wonderment.