Ant Phobia & Coloured Bottoms

I have to be really careful not to vomit while typing this post.

Ants.

Absolutely makes my skin crawl just looking at that picture.  When I finally see past the fact that these are tiny, crawly, scattery, creepy ants I actually think this is pretty cool!  These ant bottoms change colour depending on the colour of the food they are eating – their bottoms and see-through!

My fear of ants? This movie ruined ants for me: The Naked Jungle.  It is about a mass of ants that sweeps through Africa eating everything in their path…including people!  Poor people falling over as they try to flee, only to disappear under a moving black mass of demon ants.

Dude, that gun is going to do nothing!

Eek!

Fictional movie aside, this is something that really truly does happen (but not the eating humans part).  It is called Marabunta or Army Ant where a large mass of ants forage their way through the land eating insects and small animals. Some species hunt in trees where they eat birds and their eggs. The ant raid can form a path 20 metres wide!  They don’t build a permanent nest, but keep moving and eating, moving and eating.

Okay, freaking myself out.

You Have Been Tilt-Shifted.

Tilt-Shift Photography – what do you think?  I think it is adorable!  It reminds me of an excursion I went on in primary school where we visited a town made out of miniature models.  I used the entire disposable camera film that my parents gave me for the trip on these mini-marvells.

Tilt-shift also reminds me of what God must see from above 🙂  We are so small and busy and all over the place….like little ants.  So many people wandering all over the landscape, how cool to spot yourself in one of these pics.

I remember talking to my class about one of the reasons God came as Jesus to be with us.  It went something like this – “Imagine you are God and all the people in the world are ants.  You are above them, looking down at what the little ants are up to.  You can see they are so focussed on what they are doing, and busying themselves with providing themselves with what they need.  As God, you can also see what lies ahead of them – dangers and obstacles.  You can see that some of the ants are making wrong choices and heading in the direction of danger or hard times.  You care so much about these ants (cause you made them) and you don’t want one single ant to get hurt, so you begin calling down to them!  They can’t hear you, as they are too busy doing their own thing,and they never look upwards at you.  Even if they could hear your voice, they wouldn’t be able to understand you.  So the ONLY way you can save them and tell them how the choices they are making in their ant-life are causing or going to cause them harm, you decide to become a tiny, little ant – just like them.  You go down as an ant, they see you (cause you look like them), they can hear you (cause you are speaking ‘ant’).  You begin to teach them the right way and hope that when you go, they will remember you.”

Somehow, when I look at tilt-shift photographs, it reminds me of this story.