This is a bug snug.
More importantly, this is Bethany’s Bug Snug. Thanks to Dana for sending me a picture. It’s right beside the garden that Louisa and the Sunday School children have built. I had never heard of a bug snug before, but Louisa told me it’s for bugs to hunker down and spend the winter hibernating. I don’t think I knew that bugs hibernated. Being a non-bug person, I was just glad I didn’t see many bugs in the winter. Inside or outside.
I don’t think I ever wondered or thought about where actually the bugs might be. A quick google search will turn up all kinds of information about bug snugs, how to make them, and bugs hibernating.
This week we have been contemplating the words “rest” and “growth”, and the parable of the fig tree that still hadn’t produced fruit. I am pondering the times in my life when I have been forced to rest, perhaps on advice from a doctor or because of an injury, and how difficult it sometimes is to slow down.
One of the supplemental articles in the worship materials talked about something called The Nap Ministry, and the Nap Bishop. I was a bit curious. Turns out to be kind of a big deal. Almost a movement. Here’s an article about The Nap Ministry, and Tricia Hersey, its founder, and author of the New York Times bestseller, “Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto.”
And you can listen to or read an interview with Tricia Hersey, The Nap Bishop, on CBC’s Tapestry here:
'The Nap Bishop' explains why rest is a form of radical resistance | CBC Radio
There are also lots Nap Ministry youtube videos and interviews, and you can visit About | The Nap Ministry
Who knew? I’m intrigued …
A few years ago I read the book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May, after hearing her interviewed on Krista Tippet’s On Being podcast. That’s where I learned, among many other things, that knitting actually lowered one’s blood pressure (although I could be persuaded to argue that some of the complicated patterns I have tried recently have no doubt raised my blood pressure on occasion …).
I loved the book, and her extensive research and insights. It stressed the importance of slowing down, and learning how to value those times when we might seem unproductive. May says that … “wintering is a metaphor for those phases in our life when we feel frozen out or unable to make the next step, and that that can come at any time, in any season, in any weather, that it has nothing to do with the physical cold.”
In the podcast, Krista Tippet asks May to read an excerpt from her book:
“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.
“It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing these deeply unfashionable things — slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting — is a radical act now, but it’s essential.”
You can listen to the full On Being podcast at:
Katherine May — How ‘Wintering’ Replenishes | The On Being Project
Bug Snugs, The Nap Bishop and Wintering. Rest and Growth. It’s all part of the rhythm of life, the natural cycles of our lives.
May you find and welcome the rest you need these days.
