It was starting to get dark and I was getting stiff from the six hour drive to Columbia as we sat eating our Firehouse subs at a picnic table in Congeree National Park. It was our first time seeing the famous synchronized fireflies that our son-in-law had been so instrumental in promoting. Tonight, Jon was not a ranger. He was just my daughter’s husband in street clothes, leading his church small group on an outing at the park. But, in uniform or not, he was busy answering our questions and telling us what to expect once it got dark. Thousands of what I have always called lightening bugs were about to come together, and for reasons that are not entirely understood, start flashing their lights...all at the same time. He explained the rules...no cell phone usage, no cameras...they wouldn’t do us any good anyhow since their shutter speeds aren’t fast enough to capture the sight.
People began to show up and stream through the entrance to the special viewing trail that Jon had devised and help cut through the low lying and heavy thickets. At the gate, people who had flashlights were given strips of red cellophane and tiny rubber bands to cover them and told to only use them pointed down at the ground, that unnatural light would throw off the synchronization. The trail itself was lit by cellophane covered lamps along the ground on either side of the trail, and cordoned off by glow in the dark rope. The early arrivals had staked out spots for themselves at the chairs and picnic tables that had been set up in random spots along the trail, most of them with huge special cameras atop tripods, waiting for the perfect shot.
I was getting impatient, a frequent affliction of mine, waiting for something to happen. This was Columbia, after all...in late May. It was hot and getting more humid by the minute. I was waiting not only for the fireflies to arrive, but their distant cousins...mosquitoes... to make an appearance. As more and more people began to arrive, I felt that familiar sensation that comes over me at times like this. Whenever I am waiting for some long awaited event, or some over-hyped big thing that people have been telling me I just have to see, I become detached and cynical, sometimes to the point of becoming determined not to be impressed. It’s part of my nature, I suppose, and not a very attractive part, this contrarianism.
When we finally got in line and made our way to Jon’s suggested vantage point, it was still dusk, not quite dark. The fireflies were visible now but not an impressive number of them and not yet snyched up. I could feel the jaded cockiness coming to the surface. I remember thinking, Are you kidding me? I came all the way out here for this?
Then, around a quarter to nine, about the time that the last glow of the setting sun was disappearing from the horizon, something clicked. Suddenly their numbers swelled, and the darkening woods began to pulse with white light. These were not the lightening bugs of my youth, which blinked slowly and whose color was more a greenish yellow. These fireflies were bright white, almost like LED lights and their flash was like Quicksilver. I was mesmerized. And then I noticed it...the silence.
There aren’t many places in this world anymore that involve large numbers of human beings...and silence. Even in churches, where people used to gather to be quiet, there is always some sort of buzz. Libraries are still quiet I guess, but who goes to libraries anymore? But, here I was, in the middle of the woods...in a swamp, surrounded by hundreds of strangers in tight quarters in now total darkness...and suddenly everyone was hushed by the moment. Suddenly, no one felt it appropriate to speak above a whisper. Why? No one had warned us that loud noises would make the fireflies go away or get out of synch. Still, everyone seemed to somehow know that silence was the proper response for this moment.
After a time of gawking, we decided to move along the trail. By that time it was pitch black, the almost complete lack of man-made light had cast a black blanket over the world. We inched along, holding on to one another, glancing down only to find the cellophane covered trail lights and the dim red glow that assured us that we weren’t wandering into the swamp. The fireflies were on both sides of us now, blinking, blinking, blinking. The only disturbance was some girl who tried to take a picture with her cellphone. The flash of it exploded like a bolt of lightening and a murmur of disapproval rippled through the crowd. It never happened again. There’s always at least one idiot.
As we stumbled along in the darkness, carried along by each other and trust in what we could not see, it occurred to me that the assembled crowd had absolutely nothing in common except our humility in the presence of this mysterious beauty. There were Christians, non-Christians, several different races, democrats and republicans, meat-eaters and vegetarians...all of us brought down from our high horses for a while, humbled and silenced by something that no one can quite explain...synchronized fireflies. If you believe in God, it was if he was saying to us...Here, slow down for a minute. Rest with me for a while. Let me show you something beautiful.
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