Of ants and dandelions

All morning we've been stepping on them, cursing them and praying they would find a new home.

"Them?"

Ants. Big black ants descend on our kitchen every spring. When our 5-year-old son, Sam, wakes up, he runs into the kitchen screaming, "Are they still here?" Finding one, he squats in the middle of the floor to give us a play-by-play account of a moment in an ant's life. With intricate detail, Sam tells how the ant picks up and carries off a crumb. He notices how the ants retrieve the carcasses of fallen comrades, which leads to a long conversation about death. For us, these are simply ants — annoying, dirty and everywhere. For our young son, they are one of God's marvelous creations.