Technically, it’s not summer yet, though it sure feels like it with the heat, but last night I was graced with an early lightening bug leading me to my back door. This lovely sign of summer belongs to a species called Lampyridae, with more than 2400 varieties. The summer sky used to full of these blinking insects but our use of pesticides and the noisy blowers to clean leaves from a fall lawn have contributed to their reduction in numbers.
The blinking comes from bioluminescence, a highly efficient chemical reaction in their abdomens. Males fly around blinking to attract females and to warn possible predators not to eat them because their blood is actually toxic to other little creatures. They love warm humid evenings like we’re having and they are really quite beneficial because they eat slugs and other garden pests.
Some of us oldsters may remember the Johnny Mercer song, a re-write of a 1902 song from a German operetta song by Paul Lincke, with the lyrics, “Shine, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer.” To protect this useful little insect that gives us so much delight on a late spring or early summer night, we need to protect their habitat in our own back yards.
Prayer for the Day
Holy Creator, you come to us in the warmth of the evening,
Even as the heat feels like it will undo us;
Your harbingers of summer reflect your infinitude,
For in wisdom you bring them to remind us of you.
Awaken us, Holy One, so we realize how our actions,
Often ones we do not realize, can lead to destruction.
In the name of the One who also looked at a summer sky,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The only biodiversity we’re going to have left is Coke versus Pepsi. We’re landscaping the whole world one stupid mistake at a time.
Chuck Palahniuk, American novelist, from Lullaby
Nature is also the main protagonist in our lives. It is largely unrepresented and voiceless. Until it screams. Then we have to pay attention.
Sadie Noni, American writer of young people’s fiction
And God said: “Let the earth bring forth living creatures: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of earth o every kind.” And it was so.
Genesis 1: 24