Make Sure You Tell the Bees

Sunday, August 17, 2025

The Rev. Dr. Marian Stewart (she/her)

Ohio Organizing Manager, Faith in Public Life

Queer Unitarian Universalist

Shhh. Don’t fly away. I’ve got something to tell you.

But first, the ritual. Prepare the bees. Get a cloth. Drape it over the hive. Or just rotate the hive away from the light. Either way, invite the bees into silence. Ask them to suspend the known and await the unknown. In the darkness, ask the bees to wait. Quietly. So they know.

Change is coming.

On this World Honeybee Day, which is always the third Saturday of August, I invite you to also go into the dark and sit. Wait. What do you need to tell the bees?

As a gay person growing up in the old South, I struggled coming out. It was dangerous. I ended up coming out several times. Parental responses of “How can I hold my head up in public” to “I hate you” cut me to the core. I went into deep silence. Unaddressed self-loathing underlaid the loss of future jobs, housing, and even my church. In the end, I also lost my biological family.

And yet, I found a way to survive. I grew into a delicate acceptance but mostly flew under the radar. I learned to be quiet. Hidden. Even from myself. Smiles and conversational mirrors let me escape focus. I got by. I was fortunate. I could pass.

My soul couldn’t pass though. And I was terrified to face the darkness. I knew, if I went there, the truth had to come out.

I had always admired people who lived their life in the fullness of who they were. Such bravery. Such brilliance. I learned over time though, that for some, the air of confidence hid their own version of self-deception or loathing. They too were afraid of the dark nights of the soul.

You could tell the people who had done their work though. Through hard times and good, there was always a light in them. It was from the inside. Like their souls were guiding the way. I wanted that too. But I knew, I had to first go into the dark.

Mystics, saints, and sages have always invited us into the dark. To be still. To be quiet. In his despair, Jesus went into the garden. He submitted, ‘Not my will, but yours be done.’ Jesus did not submit his spirit to the authorities; he kept his faith. In my world, my faith calls me to be true. In the dark of my soul, the truth shines a light.

Others might have known who I was before I owned it myself. To be public though, I had to first hold myself to the truth. I am who I am. I am a wonderfully created being out of the stardust that forms all of who we are.

Just as there are an estimated 3.5 trillion honeybees flying around the world, there are billions and billions of individual points of light who are our fellow human beings. No two are alike and each has their own gifts. I do too. So do you.

One thing I’ve learned is that our gifts grow and glow best with light.

Folk tradition tells us we, as beekeepers, our duty is to inform the bees when any major change occurs. Whether it be the death of a beekeeper and the announcement of a new caretaker, or the birth, marriage, or death of a loved one. We must tell the bees.

When we face our own crisis of identity, we are – for the moment – the bees. We go into the dark and wait. Who are we? What is our truth? When we are ready, we find the agency of self to pull back the drape away from the hive of our soul and dare to shine. We become the beekeeper and inform the world of our change. I have done my work, or at least enough of it, to claim my fullness and let my light shine. Hello world.

I invite you into the ritual of telling the bees. First, you must find a cloth…go into the dark…

When you acknowledge the light of your truth, you and I and everyone else will know, the bees – our family, by blood or love, and our friends – will not fly away.