My little niece came to stay with us at our house in the mountains.

I think that it was a different sort of experience for her.

At one point in the visit, after it had gotten dark and all the nighttime creatures had started to make their nighttime sounds, she said, concerned, “What is that sound?”

I told her it was the crickets (after running through a couple of possibilities).

I think she was a little nervous about something that sounded so strange and foreign to her little ears.

That was a bunch of years ago….my “little niece” is grown and married now.

Things change….and the crickets are still around.

It’s so quiet here….no traffic noises or people on the street….we’re far enough away from the highway that we don’t hear that traffic noise…but it’s not completely silent.

There is a lot of living going on outside…lots of insect and animal noise if you listen to it.

There is so much life going on “outside” of my own life.

I’m the one I notice.

Me…and the people around me.

The people I love….and the ones who bump into my life….I notice them.

These bugs outside….I only notice them when I stop to pay attention.

There is a lot that I don’t notice.

My niece was a little bit afraid of something so strange….maybe “concerned” is a better word.

Maybe she wasn’t afraid….just a little bit concerned about something that she’d never experienced before?

When I explained that it was just a bug…just a bug that couldn’t “get her”….that was enough to calm her down….take away the fear of the unknown.

I’m afraid of what I don’t know….but I’m getting old enough to realize the volume of things that I don’t know would leave me in a perpetual state of panic if I let it….so I’m not really all that afraid most of the time.

There’s just too much to be afraid of if I was going to choose to be afraid of the unknown.

There’s too much that I don’t know.

I think that I’m getting wiser….I know that I don’t know now.

Like Clint Eastwood said, “a man’s got to know his limitations.”

I know a lot of mine…but they don’t all cripple me.

These bugs are out there….living their noisy morning lives…and I’m in here, typing away.

Each of us has our place in time…each of us takes up a temporary chunk of space….moving through our lives in our own way.

The Bible says “look at the birds of the field….” …what’s the exact verse? I’ll google it….Matthew 6:25-27…….

25“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27“And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?

Don’t worry….these bugs are out there…no matter how we perceive them, they are out there.

I’m glad to hear them.