The Summer Solstice, Lightning Bugs and Cicadas

 Yesterday an amazing astrological event occurred.  The sun traveled its longest path through the sky and reached its highest point of the year—making yesterday the longest day of 2021. In spite of our attempts to make Memorial Day Weekend the beginning of summer—the solstice is the true beginning of the season.  This astrological phenomena happens every year at about mid-year, and has, no doubt, occurred since the universe came into being.  

We are all familiar with “fireflies” or “lightning bugs”—another amazing phenomena of nature.  Lightning bugs are beetles (like the ladybug).  Neither are bugs. Lightning bugs live for only a couple of weeks as adults (about a year from egg to adult).  The flashes we see in our backyards when darkness comes is the language of love. The male of the species is looking for females.  “They flash a specific pattern while they fly, hoping for a female reply.  If a female waiting in the grass likes what she sees, she responds back with a flash of her own.  They will engage in this twinkling love-making until the male locates the female and they mate.”  Isn’t that romantic?   Isn’t it really incredible?

Perhaps you’ve noticed that there aren’t as many lightning bugs “lighting up” your backyard in recent years.  That’s because of “light pollution” which prevents the lightning bugs from seeing each other’s flashes, creating havoc in their love life.  Turn off those outdoor lights!  Like bees, the lightning bugs are also threatened by habitat loss, pesticide use and climate change. 

Everybody is talking about the cicadas this year.  The cicada is another of nature’s wonders.  They live underground for years and only come above-ground in adult form to reproduce (to love).  Some species live underground for 17 or more years.  When they do “come out” into the light it is for one purpose—and once that purpose is fulfilled—they die (usually within a month).  What kind of life is that?  Living in the darkness all those years and only experiencing the “light of day” for a few weeks doesn’t have much appeal to me.  Like the lightning bug, the cicada (only the male) sings a love song and longs for a response before his day is done.

Now what am I trying to say?  I’m trying to say that all the remaining days of this year 2021 will be shorter than yesterday.  Every new day from here on out, will be shorter than the day before.  So we must sing our love song while it is day, lighting-up our own lives and the lives of others.  “What the world needs now” is for us to become what we (like the lightning bug and the cicada) are called to be—instruments of love—while it is day.

Father's Day 2021

 My mind meanders through the yesterdays I’ve lived with so many who are no longer with me today.  I miss them. Some were “Father figures” for me. Some were “Mother figures” to me.  Each of them played an important role in my journey.  Each of them shaped my life.  Just a few days ago, listening to music, I heard Slim Whitman singing “Where Has Yesterday Gone?” The words of that song continue to sing in me.  The question “Where has yesterday gone” seems to have stuck in my mind.

I’m grateful for the yesterdays when I had my father and mother around.  I still wonder how and where they obtained the wisdom and the understanding they demonstrated as they raised me and my six siblings.  They really were extraordinary.  

I’m also grateful for the yesterdays when other men and women were there for me—my extended family—my surrogate mothers and fathers.  There are so many.  Bea Smith (a Sunday school teacher), Ken and Bonnie Mart (my boyhood pastor and his wife), Willie (who ran the garage next door), Julie (Willie’s sidekick and brother-in-law), Freda Roveda (who operated the tavern down the road), teachers and professors who took an interest in me, George, a parishioner (known as Pert to some), spiritual directors like Gordon, Mur, and Elton, who guided me through turbulent spiritual storms.  They were “Star Persons” who, like the light of Bethlehem’s star, led me and guided me along the roads of those yesterdays. Isn’t that what a father, a mother, is supposed to be and do—love us, lead us, and guide us along the path of life?

George, who was a “father” to me in so many ways through almost 40 years, wrote at the time of my father’s death:  “I think of my father everyday and sometimes many times during that day.  He will have been dead 58 years tomorrow.  He was 80 years old plus exactly six months….”

When Father took me by the hand,

Somehow the world seemed small,

The steeple’s point, the towering oak

Seemed only half so tall.

When Father took me by the hand,

Bright rainbows scanned the sky,

And hope and confidence were mine

When he was standing by.

When Father took me by the hand,

I had no thought of fear,

And even now, when trials come,

I feel his presence near.

Thank God, the Father of us all, who through those “many fathers” (and mothers)  of yesterday, took me by the hand.