Good Monday morning, all! There are three types of honeybees (Apis mellifera) in a hive/colony: 1) The Queen, of which there is only one per hive. She is the egg-layer, and her presence acts as the barometer for the hive. If she is healthy and producing a lot of new baby bees, then all is well. If she is unhealthy, isn’t laying well, dies, or leaves, the hive will be thrown into chaos and disarray for some time. 2) The Drones are the male bees, and in a healthy hive, there will be a handful around (by no means the majority of the population). They rarely leave the hive; they cannot sting; their main job is to eat and mate with queens to further the bee population in a particular area. 3) By far the largest group of bees in a hive are female bees called Workers. Worker bees do all the work within the hive, from taking care of the Queen, to tending to larvae and newly-hatched bees, to performing maintenance tasks within the hive, to foraging for pollen and nectar. From the time they hatch to the time they die, their purpose – regardless of their role – is to make sure that the hive remains protected, prosperous, productive, and viable. Worker bees only live for 4-5 weeks in the summer, and perhaps 3-4 months in the winter. Yet in their short life span, they do an incredible amount of servant-like, selfless work. The main focus of Worker bees always remains on the greater good. Of course, bees are insects and not humans, but Worker bees are not egotistical or selfish; they do not take or do for themselves and themselves alone. Everything they do is for their sister workers and their hive, to make sure it lives on beyond the brief time they are alive. If need be, they are even prepared to die protecting the hive.
Now, Worker bees don’t just live lives of quiet desperation, subject to the unilateral whims of the Queen. They do retain some agency regarding their fate. In a type of checks-and-balances system, if Workers sense that the hive is not doing well, that the Queen isn’t doing her job, or something like that, they can get rid of the Queen and make themselves a new one. Yet even in this, the focus is never on the individual Worker bee. The entire focus in on the health and well-being of the hive. Nothing less, nothing more.
What if we were to adopt a Worker bee mentality to what we are called to do with our vocation(s) and our gifts? What if we were to keep in the forefront of our mind the importance of the whole, rather than just a collection of autonomous, individual parts acting independently of one another? What if we consistently made decisions based on what is good for all of us, instead of just a few of us? What if our approach to life/work reflected an attitude of servanthood, regardless of the task we make be undertaking? What if we were to understand our connectedness as a necessary and real blessing, rather than always trying to operate on a divisive us/them paradigm?
Jesus called his disciples to walk with him in his ministry, and told them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (Mark 8:34) Jesus reminds us that living with a servant’s heart requires us to give ourselves over to something larger than ourselves, larger than anything that we might will or want. As we seeks to live into ones who embody a Worker bee mentality, we acknowledge that the whole is always greater than the parts, and that the whole can’t be whole until all the parts are lifted up and valued.
So this week, seek to embody a Worker bee mentality. Look for ways to serve others. Ask yourself: Does doing X, Y, or Z further uplift those around me, those in my family, work team, or church? Does it build up or tear down? Am I living and acting to serve the whole, or am I just living only for me? How am I linked to those around me, and how can I serve them? Worker bees live into their various roles without complaint, and they tackle those tasks with fervor until it is time for them to do something else.
May it be so for us this week. Work smartly. Laugh deeply. Live with integrity. Shine your light. Play nicely with others. And rest well.
The Monday Morning Minute 