{"id":149,"date":"2009-08-18T11:36:26","date_gmt":"2009-08-18T18:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/?p=149"},"modified":"2024-07-02T18:38:32","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T01:38:32","slug":"a-quarter-inch-of-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/personal-life\/a-quarter-inch-of-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quarter Inch of Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was out watering my ever-bearing strawberries, and, in the process, knocked a tiny black creature &#8212; a quarter inch long little black wasp &#8212; into the rain cistern. Reaching down with a gentle finger, I scooped her out and put her on my t-shirt sleeve before finishing my task while keeping an occasional eye on her revival progress.<\/p>\n<p>It took her about two minutes of rubbing herself on the soft cotton material of my shirt sleeve, then another three or so of &#8220;tidying&#8221; before she considered herself &#8220;presentable&#8221; to the world again. \u00a0Watching, I was captivated by the meticulous attention she paid to every part of herself &#8212; her antenna, her thorax, her legs, her head, her wings. \u00a0She was not hasty; she attended every detail in a thorough, methodical, and almost leisurely, never panicked fashion. \u00a0Her lack of fear, her sense of &#8220;safe&#8221;, brought me a great measure of joy &#8212; that the small creatures around me know that I will never intentionally swat, hit, squash, or harm them. \u00a0It brings me a greater measure of joy to watch these wonderful living things go about their daily business in peace and harmony with every other creature who shares their life journey.<\/p>\n<p>Be kind. The life you save could very well brighten your own well-being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was out watering my ever-bearing strawberries, and, in the process, knocked a tiny black creature &#8212; a quarter inch long little black wasp &#8212; into the rain cistern. Reaching down with a gentle finger, I scooped her out and put her on my t-shirt sleeve before finishing my task while keeping an occasional eye on her revival progress. <\/p>\n<p>It took her about two minutes of rubbing herself on the soft cotton material of my shirt sleeve, then another three or so of &#8220;tidying&#8221; before she considered herself &#8220;presentable&#8221; to the world again.&nbsp; Watching, I was captivated by the meticulous attention she paid to every part of herself &#8212; her antenna, her thorax, her legs, her head, her wings.&nbsp; She was not hasty; she attended every detail in a thorough, methodical, and almost leisurely, never panicked fashion.&nbsp; Her lack of fear, her sense of &#8220;safe&#8221;, brought me a great measure of joy &#8212; that the small creatures around me know that I will never intentionally swat, hit, squash, or harm them.&nbsp; It brings me a greater measure of joy to watch these wonderful living things go about their daily business in peace and harmony with every other creature who shares their life journey.<\/p>\n<p>Be kind. The life you save could very well brighten your own well-being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,6],"tags":[73,74,75,76,77,27,20,78,79,28],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3820,"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/3820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dlkeur.com\/dlkeur-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}