Go Ask Dad: Apocalypse cicada
A sign at my children’s school claims that, this spring, over one trillion cicadas will emerge from the ground. This is the most since 1803.
My kindergartner felt sorry for the scientists who had to collect this data. Counting one trillion of anything would be tiresome. But especially bugs. You might lose your mind, if not your religion.
I wonder what our early 19th-century friends thought of their cicada eruption. America was experiencing the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant religious revival characterized by fire and brimstone preaching. Perhaps cicadas were thought to be a sign of the apocalypse.
If I had to count one trillion cicadas, I would wish for the end.
Today, a fellow parent said to me, “You can start your day over anytime you want,” which struck me as a way to live in the moment, which has been preached over the years by many prophets, sages and mystics.
But I would not want to start over counting cicadas.
It strikes me that the essential religious truths are universal. We teach them to our kindergartners along with their numbers and letters. Share what you have. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Raise your hand to go to the bathroom.
I wonder if cicadas have their own religions, perhaps their own version of the Golden Rule.
I know from my youth that, lying in the cool grass on a warm night, the stars shimmering in the sky above, the sound of cicadas felt like worship.
There are moments in life that we cannot categorize or quantify. Things that are too large or great to count. We only know enough to be in awe of what is greater than us and our ability to comprehend and, if we are lucky, to hold our loved ones close.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of Little Big Moments, a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems. Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.
