By The Rev. Devlyn Brooks
Fireflies are remarkable creatures, aren’t they?
So magical that they could only have been designed by a divinely gifted maker!
After all, fireflies -- did you know that they are actually beetles! -- produce their lights with the help of special abdominal organs which combine the chemical luciferin, enzymes called luciferase, oxygen and the molecular fuel known as “ATP” to produce their luminescent glow that brings so much glee on a warm summer evening.
Just how does it work?
Entomologists believe fireflies control their lights -- which they use to talk to each other! -- by regulating how much oxygen enters their light-producing organs.
Who needs magic when we have Mother Nature! Thank you, you clever Creator!
I wonder how many of us fondly recall being a kid chasing down fireflies at dusk to capture them in a Mason jar? Running full tilt to catch the fast zig-zaggin’ buggers … until -- success! -- you managed to bottle one up!
Is there a more quintessential summer’s eve memory than that?
But, tragically, the days of firefly catching may be doomed. Because we are creating a plant that is inhospitable to them, along with millions of other species, I might add.
The Washington Post this week wrote that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to declare the Bethany Beach firefly, which calls the East Coast home, as threatened, which would make it the first time officials have sought to add a firefly to the federal Endangered Species Act list.
But this is just a harbinger, because entomologists say that across North America one in three species of the firefly is in trouble of becoming extinct.
And the trouble doesn’t stop there.
Scientists around the world are finding that insects of all varieties are disappearing in a giant “bugpacolypse.” The decline includes butterflies, bees and all sorts of other well-known creatures.
Sadly friends, we have only ourselves to blame. And it’s past time that we own up to the reality that we are failing at being stewards of God’s earthly creation.
These fragile creatures can’t withstand the human-induced climate change, the voracious appetite to continue to develop natural lands, the evening sky being awash in unnatural light, the draining of marshes, the use of pesticides, and the list goes on.
Insects are under attack from our human activity that drives to change and shape and bend the planet to feed our insatiable wants and desires.
Each and every one of us is guilty, of course. We’re all complicit in producing this modern world. And it will take each of us in unison to reverse the effects.
Friends, regardless of your politics, we are not living up to our biblical duties to be stewards of God’s divine creation. And, unfortunately for so many millions of species we live alongside, time is running out.
Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy.
Devlyn Brooks is the interim CEO of Churches United in Moorhead, Minn., and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.
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