Fireflies!

Lightning bugs!
All the stuff - cruel stuff - going on in the world.
All the stuff - stupid stuff - going on in the Anglican churches.
So many substantive articles I could write.
And I choose fireflies.

But seriously! It's almost mid-June. It's still chilly at night. Heck, it's chilly and rainy during the day.
And tonight, up out of the grass, one, then another, then more and more, fireflies.

Syria is killing her own people.
The bishops in the Church of England proclaim state legalized marriage between people (read "men" - they couldn't care a bit about women) of the same sex is one of the biggest threats the Church has faced in centuries.
The failing economy in the U.S. threatens to take down the whole world.
An accounting error (!) in my town's school budget threatens the education of children, free, high quality education being the most important thing standing between humankind and chaos.

And I choose to write about the wonder of seeing fireflies this evening, before it became dark and the playfulness of my dog, Xena trying to catch them and not understanding where that light went. It was just there, wasn't it?!
Magic. The magic of fireflies.

In the middle of that wonder, I find myself standing, suddenly, naked before God, for one blinding second. Just me. Not my job, or my thoughts, or my fears, or who I think I am. But me. And then it's gone, and I'm aware of aware again of all the stuff in my head that I think makes me, me, but I remember that one naked second. And the fireflies, flickering, disappearing, and reappearing someplace else I can't predict.