Ever notice how a cricket by itself is much more annoying than hundreds of crickets making noise together?

My husband’s worst nightmare is a lone cricket hiding somewhere in the house driving us crazy with its incessant…chirping? What do they do?

But anyway, far less often, people have the urge to run in their backyards and stamp out the noise of the legion of crickets. It’s just that one. The symphony of the many mixed with all the other noises of nature is actually soothing and peaceful.

There’s an analogy or witticism here somewhere, but the first run of applications that popped up in my head are all negative…

“Don’t be an annoying lone cricket, or you’ll get smashed.”

“Follow the crowd, or you will suffer.”

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” (or, in this case, the squashing)

“Your bad singing is masked in a choir.”

“Safety resides in community.”

I’m getting closer.

“The product of working together is better than struggling alone.”

Okay, how about this?

“Woe the wayward cricket, chirping all alone. He has forgotten his cricket community and home, within which his dangerously annoying noise is transformed into a beautiful tone.”

Or, in other less corny words…hearing lone crickets reminds me of the need for community for each of us. We were made for it, and we can’t function most effectively without it. Forsaking it can make us annoying to others and to ourselves, never fully satisfied and chirping around for something. Believe me on this one. I’m an introvert who gets energized by time alone, yet I still require and greatly need a community, tribe, crew, whatever you want to call it.

So, if you find yourself a lonely cricket today, I encourage you to hop around until you find what you were made for. Community is one thing in life that does not return void.