The Southwest Voice

By: Mike Osthimer

I have heard some very strange stories in my life as a pastor. Actually, I don’t think being a pastor has anything to do with it. If you have lived long at all you hear some pretty interesting stories and occasionally you get to witness some. Sunday night I heard a story buzzing through the group of Sunday riders from our church that meets weekly, rain or shine, to go for a bike ride together. The story was about one of our group, Donna, who got stung by a bee on the tip of her tongue as she was riding on the bike path.

Picture a woman riding her bike when all of a sudden a bee latches itself onto her tongue as she is riding her bike at about 18 miles per hour. Swerving all over the road trying to maintain control of her bike as she attempted to get the bee off her tongue would have made her $10,000 richer I am sure on the television show “America’s Funniest Home Videos” had someone been able to catch it on tape.

Unfortunately, no one did — but the drama was still unfolding. After coming to a stop Donna had the presence of mind to act fast to prevent swelling. I have no idea where she learned what to do in the event of a bee sting, but I am sure she misunderstood the instructions somewhat. Donna instinctively reached down into the soft dirt below her feet and grabbed a hand full of dirt and proceeded to put it in her mouth coating her tongue with dirt. For some reason Donna believed that by doing so the dirt would work to draw the sting out of her tongue.

I have heard of packing mud on a bee sting on your extremities to take away the sting and the swelling of a bee sting or bug bite, but never have I seen, read or even heard of someone filling their mouth to do so. Picture Donna’s husband, Bill, coming up to his screaming wife with a mouth full of mud trying to explain to him what had just happened. All Bill sees is his wife with her face caked in dirt and as she speaks mud is flowing out of her mouth.

This is a true story — you can’t make this kind of stuff up. Bill attempted to clean up his wife’s muddy face and as other bikers gathered around the laughter began. Donna, being a good-natured person with a good sense of humor took the jokes in stride.

The most common thought among the group was, “What is the moral of the story?”
The answer obviously was, “keep your mouth closed.”

Just so you know, seven-time Tour De France winner Lance Armstrong was once forced to make an emergency stop on a training ride being filmed for a documentary about his life because a gnat was lodged in the tear duct of his eye and would not come out. So these weird occurrences happen to the best.

I told Donna I had to write about this incident. I told her there is a message in there somewhere and it’s my job, my mission, to find it out.

As I sit here typing away all I can think of is William Shakespeare’s line from Hamlet, “To be or not to be.” In this case it was, “To bee or not to bee.” I had to go read the words again and they seem rather fitting when I think about Donna’s encounter with the bee.

Sure, Donna could have stayed home Sunday night. She could have come up with a thousand good reasons not to ride but she chose to get out, exercise, enjoy the time with her husband and her many friends as well as share a meal together and even celebrate the birthday of one of her friends.

Yes, Donna could have stayed home and if she had our ride would not have been the same. No matter what happened, Donna made the right choice that Sunday night — about riding that is. About putting mud in her mouth I am not so sure. Donna made the decision “to be,” or in her case “to bee,” Sunday night and everyone there appreciated it. It will be a long time before we ever forget it.

You see, Donna did what she does often. She makes us laugh, sometimes she makes us cry (she has a sweet disposition), but she is never boring — that is for sure. What happened Sunday night proved once again that we can’t always understand why certain things happen to us in life but we do know that without making the choice as it were “to be” we can’t make a difference in the people’s lives around us.

Today, when you have to choose to be or not to be, I pray that you too choose to be today. Choose to be the solution and not the problem today, be the answer and not the question. Be the difference in someone else’s life today simply because you choose to be.