As I ran through the fields, I stopped to catch a little breath. I noticed something, a moving black line below me. Ants! They carried little grass seeds bigger than they were, some carried them into the hole while others carried the empty shells to a nearby pile. They all walked in a perfect line following each other.
Ants always amaze me. They are resilient and organized despite having the brain the size of a pin. I like the way Thoreau describes a fight between two in Walden: “They fought with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident their battle cry was Conquer or die.”
But this day I was reflecting on obedience. Are Ants a model of obedience?
The first reaction would be “yes.” Look at how they all do exactly what they need to. They are even willing to sacrifice themselves for it.
But something seemed a little amiss with that response. An ant is not free, it is preprogrammed – we even say “it” not “he” to distinguish. He doesn’t choose to obey. I don’t say my computer obeys the keystrokes I am using to write this – that is simply what it does. But I am free. Obedience is something human, especially if it is Christian obedience. In fact in The Freedom of Obedience, the anonymous Carthusian author states, “To fulfill this vow we must obey as free persons, not to the letter, but consciously aspiring to the meaning incarnated in the letter and ‘interiorized by us.”
It has no relation with the queen more than the merely biological. I don’t obey because it is Jesus’ will but because it is Jesus’ will. Obedience only makes sense if it begins from love: I obey Jesus because I love him and I obeyed my parents for the same reason. These ants can’t love and so they can’t obey. This way, true obedience is not something that comes from outside but something that is an internal exigency of love – love impels me to obey.
Maybe ants aren’t the best model of obedience. However, we always have the prefect model: just look at a crucifix.
