Green Me & the Bees

The Insanely Sane Nature of Saint Francis of Assisi

I’ve started talking to bees. Of course, my kids think I’m insane. They say, “Mom! Dad’s talking to bees again.” They are saying two obvious things. One, Dad is insane. Two, Dad is embarrassing. Typical, right.

Here’s how the conversation often goes, “Brother Bee, can you go somewhere else and give me and my family a little space?” Most often Brother Bee does listen, and heads off somewhere else (I’m sure with much better company). On the off chance my brother protests, I listen and head somewhere else myself.

My girls now know Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of the environment, through Brother Bee. Saint Francis is famous for addressing animals as sisters and brothers, usually telling them how much God loves them. 

Sincere Insanity 

For centuries, believers, and nonbelievers alike, have appreciated the saint’s song of praise for Brother Sun and Sister Moon. He even blessed Brother Fire right before being “cured” of his trachoma by a red hot poker jabbed straight into both eyes. Tradition has it, Francis felt no pain.

Even before becoming Catholic, I found Saint Francis to be a fascinating character. He is unarguably an intriguing figure who singularly changed the course of history for the better. By any modern or postmodern standard, he was also crazy. I like crazy (at least from a distance). I have a strongly held belief that crazy people know something about reality, some deep and abiding truth, that the vast majority of “sane” people are not likely to entertain. And I think I have identified the strand of reality that drove Saint Francis crazy. 

Saint Francis was the most sincere of the Troubadours. For those unfamiliar, Troubadours transformed French and Italian into Romance languages during the High Middle Ages, singing to windows in hopes of fair maidens and wandering aimlessly along country roads, crooning bewildered cattle. I think Saint Francis’ loose screw became unwound through his singing and songwriting. Let me explain. 

Crazy Like a Saint

I was a budding songwriter when I started calling myself a Christian at the formative age of 28. My admiration for Bill Withers and Bob Dylan expanded with a fascination for the Psalms of the Bible. In particular, the majestic choirs of the earth and stars in Psalms 8 and 19 were so moving, I was compelled to combine the two into one song to enjoy them at the same time. I also became fascinated with Claude Monet’s depiction of the sunset over Venice’s San Giorgio Maggiore Island in his painting Dusk. A framed poster of it hung at the end of the couch in my wife’s and my newlywed apartment. I would lay on the couch thinking there has never been a sunset so captivating. 

Eventually, I left songwriting to return to a desk job. One evening I found myself enveloped by the real Dusk 21-stories above the earth in the only skyscraper for miles. Alone in the office, that sunset surrounded me in floor-to-ceiling windows. It was an unmatched experience. For some reason I decided to sing my Frankensteined psalm out loud amid the grandeur and wept. As I sang, I could hear the heavens and earth singing too and became overwhelmed to the point of sobbing paralysis. I had joined the choir and wasn’t worthy. But, in that moment, I knew full well I was a welcome member.

I get the impression Saint Francis was invited to choir practice so often he went mad. Not serial-killer-mad. He became the “awe, isn’t he sweet” kind of mad. Everywhere he went, he was that infatuated lover who’s always praising their beloved, flinging himself into everything in awkward, erratic gestures and over-exaggerated expressions of affection. I admit, he probably would have made you puke if it weren’t for the fact that he was sincere and treated you, everyone else, and everything around him with incredibly high esteem and adoration.

Savage Sanity

Don’t let his sweetness fool you. Saint Francis had a sweet, savage commitment to universal heroic love. I haven’t heard of, nor do I know, anyone who lives their life with such generous abandon. He did glorious insane things. Once he pulled them off, he seemed like the only sane person around.

One story illustrates Saint Francis’ passion to reconcile humanity with the wild natural world. Around the Umbrian city of Gubbio, Italy, a wolf terrorized its inhabitants’ livestock as an appetizer before turning its sights on the citizens. Brother Wolf’s future patron, wearing a simple habit and without a weapon, confronted the wolf for its pillaging and murder outside the city’s gates. He offered mercy and a daily meal from the Gubbio residents provided the wolf would change its wicked ways. Both Brother Wolf and the city’s inhabitants agreed to the terms.

In another historical tale, Saint Francis demonstrated his passion that men should love one another. Horrified with the carnage on a battlefield outside Damietta, Egypt, during the 5th Crusade, Saint Francis tried to persuade the crusading Christians to stop fighting and failed. The papal army was eventually defeated. 

Disturbed by the carnage and destruction surrounding him, he stumbled unarmed over corpses into the Mohammedan encampment to speak with the Sultan-in-charge. Captured, then beaten, St. Francis spent over 20 days with Sultan Malek al-Kamil, each trying to persuade the other to follow Jesus or the Prophet Mohammad, respectively. Taken by the saint, his message, and his way of life, the Sultan released Francis offering him lavish gifts. Saint Francis declined, of course. 

Where the saint failed to turn the hearts of his Christian brethren, the Sultan began to offer Christian enemies mercy and a peaceful coexistence in Egypt. And to this day, Franciscans still live in peace with their Muslim sisters and brothers in Northern Africa.

Praise Bee

Pope Francis released Laudato Si: Care for Our Common Home in May of 2015. Laudato si, which means praise be, is a direct reference to Saint Francis’ Canticle of the Sun. In this encyclical, the pope lays out what he calls an integral ecology – a clear respect for the closely interrelated aspects of the environment including the human and social dimensions. He calls all people of good will to a lifestyle change – a profound interior conversion – that understands the care of all God’s handiworks as essential to the life of virtue.

In Saint Francis we find a reverence and love of Mother Earth and her inhabitants; a light-footed and light-hearted relationship to the environment; a willingness to give his own life so others could live more fully; a thankful patron asking only what was needed; and a tangible hope that all is not lost and humankind can live in beautiful, joyous love with all of creation. 

Lives like Saint Francis’ and much lesser experiences of my own steadily convince me that talking to bees may be one of the most sane ways to live on this earth. Go ahead and try it. Say hello to Brother Bee next time you see him.