The Hope for Twenty more seasons of Lightning Bugs

I once heard a story about a young woman who graduated from university with an amazing job offer. The job wasn’t a steppingstone; it was a career. She worked hard for the opportunity, the security it offered, a twenty-year trajectory ending with the type of financial rewards which only exist in most people’s dreams. There was only one problem. The job required an extreme commitment of hours. Time off would be limited, and she would only be able to come home to see her family for Christmas. She rejected the offer. Even though it appeared to be the pay-off for years of hard work, this young woman realized taking this job and all the money involved would mean she would only see her parents about twenty more times for the rest of her life. The people who raised her, loved her, launched her into life to pursue her goals would be relegated to the people she visited a few days every year. She could call them when her schedule permitted, email them, maybe even text them, but she would only be in the room with them, hug them, be physically present in their lives about twenty more times if they were lucky enough to live the average human lifespan. No financial success was worth that cost.

I marvel at the wisdom of that young woman. She understood early in life that our time on earth, this trip we are on, is short; so short it can be counted in events. I am not referring to the milestones we celebrate, the things we only enjoy once. We graduate from school, we meet the love of our lives, we get married, our children are born, they take their first steps, they say their first words, they graduate school, and we celebrate as we watch them walk the path we walked ourselves. Milestones come and mark advancement toward goals and maturation, but the events I am focusing on often go unappreciated.

Late in the Georgia spring and early in the summer, the lightning bugs come out. They flash at dusk, hover over the yard and move through the bushes. Yellow lights twinkling all around. We caught them when I was a kid, we chased them with jars which we filled with leaves and sticks and poked holes in the lid so they could breathe, as if any of us understood their needs. I occasionally kept them in my room overnight and let them flash in the darkness only to release them the next morning. As an adult, I merely sit and watch them dance. The air is humid, the yard impossibly green that time of year, and the yellow flashes make it all magical. My children learned how to sweep their hand through the air and catch them without hurting them, like waving a wand in an ancient incantation which results in an insect appearing on the palm of your hand. I sometimes get up do it still today, like capturing a moment with old friends. They walk across my palm, their dark wings open, undisturbed by their captor they flex for a moment, light up and fly away. The Georgia summer is here, and as the warm night progresses and the twilight fades into darkness, the lightning bugs climb higher into the trees. It is so beautiful it takes my breath away.

I watch it all, feel it all, smell it all, and know I am blessed. I may get to enjoy this season twenty more times. I may see spring in north Georgia twenty more times, the azaleas and dogwoods in bloom, the explosion of lilies as winter ends. The turning of the leaves marking autumn in the smoky mountains, the beauty of Christmas lights and Christmas carols filling a temporarily quieter happier world, maybe twenty more times for them all.

In many ways, our human experience is tied to its finitude. Community preexists us and survives beyond us. I was born a son, a grandson, a nephew, and a brother into a world established by generations to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. By hook or by crook, I learned my role in this world, found something to live for, and discovered truths bigger than me. Faster than I could possibly believe, a new generation was being born to which I owed the duty to steward and teach the values that must survive through them after I am gone. They grew. I marked their milestones but never realized I was experiencing all the lasts; the last time I would carry them on the back of my neck, the last time they would nap on my chest, the last time I would drive them to practice, the last lacrosse game I would watch them play, all these experiences leaving my life forever without my knowing it, without taking a moment to cherish it. My children continue to increase in the world, and I begin to diminish. The world is theirs to reach, to spread the love of Christ, to build their own families, and I store up the experiences in my heart. Life is fast, the world is beautiful, and I am so grateful to God for putting me into his creation.

But the beauty, the experiences, the events cannot become a distraction. There is a church in the middle of Teton National Park, the Chapel of the Transfiguration. It is a small log cabin style chapel with a picture window behind the altar framing a view of the Teton mountain range. It is, to my mind, one of the most beautiful places on earth. I could sit there and admire that view forever. Someone understood that impulse and placed a sign warning against being transfixed by its beauty. It reads that just as Peter wanted to build three tents for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses at the transfiguration of our Lord on the mountain, to tarry in the glory, we might be tempted to stay. Yet, our work is not done. We strive for a greater glory. These beautiful moments are brief, a gift, but not our purpose.

C.S. Lewis wrote of this in Mere Christianity. A chapter titled simply “Hope” addresses our longings, desires, hungers, and needs that cannot be fully sated. Some see the brevity of life, its fleeting nature, as a curse. When I read some transhumanist authors, their panic at the idea of ceasing to exist jumps off the page. They would transform humanity into something else altogether just to extend this life beyond our current limits. Their craving for more is understandable, the world holds so many wonders we might cling to life to cling to that beauty. Lewis warns this impulse is destructive. We must be neither fools endlessly chasing the next experience nor the disillusioned sensible man who callouses himself to the beauty of it all under the pretense that fawning over beauty is for the immature. No, we must see it all for what it is, a glimpse of something greater:

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which we shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of my life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.”

If I am lucky, I get twenty more Georgia springs, twenty more seasons of lightning bugs, if I am lucky twenty more Christmases. How many more mornings will I get to sit at the beach and watch the sun come up as the waves crash at my feet, basking in the smell and sounds, watching the crabs try to move about the sugar white sands of the Gulf beaches unseen and freezing in place if I turn my head toward them? Was my last morning at the beach the last time? How many more hugs from my children, how many more workouts with my daughter at the lacrosse field? I want to soak in every moment and be grateful for it all. Dennis Prager often says that happiness is not possible without gratitude, so cultivating a deeper sense of gratitude about the immense number of experiences God gives us worthy of being thankful for is healthy. It is far better than doom scrolling, spending my time online consumed by negative news cycles and criticizing the social media posts of digital friends and followers, whatever those terms mean in the weird new world.

I also must make good use of the life God gave me, knowing that lightning bugs, sugary white beaches, and my love for my family are all fleeting glimpses of something greater that is coming. True light, true beauty, true community awaits us elsewhere in our true home. So then, my true job is to tell as many people as I can about that true home and the grace and mercy which make our journey their possible.