The Many-named Ladybird!

On my way into Guerry Hall, I stopped to admire the trunk of a maple, and there I was surprised to find Asian lady beetles scurrying into tight clumps wherever protection from cold is to be found. Of course, I thought, this is what happens in their natural habitat! (I much prefer them here than on the ceiling of my kitchen.)

Inside, I settled at a distance from others in the audience to ensure an uninterrupted view. Minton Sparks (Sewanee and Vanderbilt graduate, under her own name), a woman whose work I've long admired, performed one poem/song after another, each bringing to life a unique southern character -- the gossiping aunts pecking like chickens down by the barn, the mother who pumps gas, a woman who escapes violence, the boy who rides his dead other's guitar like a stick horse, the angry weed whacking woman who lost a son in war.

Each poem, each performance, a masterpiece of observation and compassion. Look at the oddity/otherness, she invited us, and then look again, for there in each person is our common and essential humanity. Minton Sparks invites our sympathy.

Perhaps if we huddle together to share our warmth like the lady beetles on that tree, we'd have less war, and inequality, and poverty, and judgment. Perhaps, there's something to learn from those bugs after all.