Chewing Down My Barn by carpenter bees has a passive tone as a title. Of course, I haven’t gone fully passive in recent years, but I’m more aware of the world happening to me, gradually tearing down some of my ego barns. This is not to say that the young shouldn’t actively build their own silos. They should, for their own good and that of others. But a glance now and then at the carpenter bees could give them more perspective going forward.

As a student of religions, I remain very interested in their ups and downs. I would say that about the Catholic Church where I started my spiritual journey. After twenty years in the Order, I stay on top of Jesuit news and Pope Francis’s moves.

Yet spirituality has been widely enlarged for me by Buddhist and Daoist insights/practices as well as by Muslim and Christian mystics.

The carpenter bees of aging are further clearing the field for me, bringing me down to experience the simplicity of God in every molecule of the universe.

Eugene C. Bianchi is a Professor of Religion Emeritus at Emory University. He is the founding director of the Emeritus College program at Emory. Mr. Bianchi makes his home in Athens, Georgia, with his wife, Margaret (Peggy) Herrman.