I don't know what it was that made me notice - probably some small movement reflected through the glass - but when I looked, there it was, crawling up the side of my glass: a ladybug. The glass itself is one of those cheap imitations of cut glass, fissures and slashes molded in when it was cast. The bug was exploring, moving around the glass, following the pattern, steadily mapping, or so it seemed.

Being very fond of ladybugs, I held up the glass, watching the little thing as it crawled over the convoluted surface. I could count the spots on its back (eight), examine its big white eyes, observe its six neat, tiny, precisely jointed legs. It seemed to be tasting the glass's surface, raising its forelegs to its mouthparts, presumably to pick up chemicals from my fingerprints and whatever, and to convey them to its receptors.

It was utterly absorbed. I don't think it even noticed that I'd picked the glass up that its small world had been radically dislocated. It was too busy to pay any mind, if you can use the word "mind" in conjunction with a ladybug. There was something almost trusting about its utter peacefulness as I turned the glass around, watching it. Either it knew I wasn't going to kill it, or it was quite extraordinarily stupid.

I can't imagine a housefly staying put under those circumstances. Houseflies are too wary, too smart, too fast. Have they adapted to be so fast and jumpy because they know we'll whomp them if they stay put? Has the ladybug adapted to be trusting around humans because we think it's cute? This is probably anthropomorphizing bugs far too much. In fact, this behaviour is probably hardwired for very different reasons. The ladybug, after all, has by far the tougher shell....

This world thinks the fly has it right and the ladybug needs to have its tiny mind examined. The way this world works (or so this world believes), you'd better be fast on your feet (or wings) - ready to grab whatever nourishment comes to mandible, however ripe, and get out fast. The way this world thinks, the fly's the bug of choice: it's fast, maneuverable, reactive, exploitative, a survivor. The way this world thinks, the ladybug is just plain nuts to trust another human being. I could have crushed it so easily, and I'm sure some other person would have done just that.

But I believe that we're called on to be trusting - to believe that God does indeed hold us safe in the palm of God's hand and to live our lives with that supposition underneath everything we do. I believe that we're called on to live in the knowledge, confirmed by Christ Jesus, that God truly does love us and is looking out for us - that God is about our paths and our ways, there at our getting up and lying down, with us at all times. Sometimes, given how life goes, I can't always believe this as firmly in my heart as I believe it in my head and as I know it in my spirit - but that's the faith I choose to hold to, nonetheless. And it is what I must come back to each and every day.

For the ladybug is free, as the fly is not. The fly looks free, wheeling from surface to surface and doing arabesques in the air, but it's only buzzing about in anxiety. It can't explore anything in any depth because it's always watching out for that fast swat. It's purely reactive. It has no real power in and of itself; it is merely helplessly, fearfully on the watch for that rolled-up magazine. Maybe it gets its jollies by being so good at fast take-off-and-landing, but it can't ever truly rest and be thankful.

The ladybug, secure in its trust of me, could take its time peacefully exploring the glass, savouring all the scents and signals from my fingers on its surface. If we can be secure in our trust in God, we can take our time peacefully exploring this life, savouring all the scents and signals from God's fingers on its surface.

This world may think that we're stupid to trust, that we've given up our freedom to follow the Great Journey. But to be a pilgrim, to have faith, is to be truly free in ways that this world cannot begin to imagine. If we trust in God's love to look after us, we can be free to be and to grow, to seek healing and completion, to love and explore, to feel and think with depth and power and imagination.

We can do this even if life itself is a prison of sorts, because the bars of circumstance are nowhere near as effective as the bars of anxiety. The bars of circumstance may govern what you can and cannot do, but the bars of anxiety govern who you can and cannot be, and that is much more serious.

"For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well." (Luke 12, 30-31.)

Abruptly the ladybug flipped open its back shell segments, showing wings of astonishing delicacy, and took off to circle the kitchen light. I put the glass in the kitchen sink and went off to get ready for bed.