On the Honey Cycle

They came from far away, nearly an entire half a mile(!) as the honeybee flies. Welcome visitors in my backyard, they crowd in on a giant hyssop from sunrise to sunset throughout most of July and August. They are joined in their busy work by eastern carpenter bees and other bumble types, flies, gnats, and the occasional black swallowtail fluttering down to glimpse all the activity.

These winged members of Englewood Christian Church likely do not realize that they and I are practicing mutual reciprocity. For while I planted the hyssop for these friends to enjoy, I have also received their gifts. On the roof of our church’s building, Tyler Selby and I visit the honeybees’ home, stacked hives whose openings face our daycare’s windows so children can safely watch the bees’ comings and goings.

Tim Ross, the intrepid bee-vangelist shares his deep apiary wisdom with Tyler, and I serve as their unofficial photographer, cheerleader, and sous-chef specializing in honey extraction. The first big harvest of honey offered about forty pounds of this sweet gift. I dip my finger in a repurposed pesto jar now filled with sticky goodness. Mmmmm. Tomorrow it will show up on my oatmeal.

Gratitude is a holy response to the recognition that what you’ve been given is a gift. There is plenty of goodness to share. And with joy, you pass some of your own abundance on to others. It’s the antithesis to the cycle of violence, in which we retaliate when hurt or shamed, reflecting pain back on the giver as well as extending it on to others over and over. Gratitude becomes a reciprocal cycle as well: receiving, celebrating, then sharing over and over again.

I’m already thinking about who to gift jars of honey, and where to plant more bee-friendly plants: Perpetuating and expanding the goodness of sweet nectar and sustenance for our pollinator neighbors, and the joy of local honey for our human neighbors.