Red-Eyed Time Travelers
Outside my office at church, summer has arrived. This year’s batch of baby groundhogs have their heads up among the clover in the field across the street. And I can hear the constant drone of cicadas – Brood X has arrived and is making itself at home. I understand your mileage may vary significantly when it comes to your appreciation of the hordes of loud, red-eyed, bugs that are frantically living their last few weeks of their long lifespan in our neighborhoods. That said, there is so much about these insects that is miraculous.
• Their lifecycle: How can we not see a creative designer at work in the universe when billions of creatures learn to tell time and emerge in unison from the earth when the ground temperature reaches 64 degrees Fahrenheit?
• Their survival strategy: Cicadas are easy prey for many animals and always have been. To counteract this, their 17-year lifecycle is long enough that most common predators will have never seen them before. They also emerge all at once – evidently on the theory that there are only so many cicadas most animals can eat.
• Their flavor: I have been told they taste a bit like shrimp. We have much to be anxious about these days – and not just whether cicadas really taste like shrimp (if you have tried them, feel free to report back).
The truth is that the waning of COVID-19 is bringing changes to our lives. Some of us are returning to in-person work for the first time in 14 months. We must decide whether or not it’s time to take off our masks when we are grocery shopping. We might be asking ourselves if it makes sense to return to church. In the middle of it, I think it does us good to stop and notice the God-given wonders that continue around us. Sunrises and sunsets, green trees, west winds on hot afternoons, and even the 17-year-visit from Brood X. We live in a world that for all its chaos and unpredictability, is wonderfully made and ordered. The signs of its maker and His work are all around us – even in this summer’s cicadas.
The Rev. Peter Frank is the Rector of the Church of the Epiphany in Chantilly, VA