Friday, December 25, 2015

Pill bug Christmas prayer

My Christmas prayer last year....


Less than a mile away, in the gray shadows of a closed classroom, a pill bug wanders around some compost, feeling relief as it moistens it gills. It stumbles onto a fellow pill bug, exchanges greetings with a brief twitching of touching antennae, then ambles over to a piece of potato.

Wild pill bug, loitering on a North Cape May driveway.

It sees light we know exists, but no human will see today.
It knows sound we know exists; an old analog clock ticks a few feet away.
It knows of existence, and the existence of others like it.

Christmas means nothing, of course, to a critter no bigger than a wheat berry.
But living does.

The light is returning.
Amen.




There is joy and wisdom in silence and darkness.
Merry Christmas!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why should Christmas mean anything to a pill bug? It is not like God became a pill bug and extended an invitation for all the pill bugs' spirits to dwell with him once this life is over!
... on further reflection, I'm sure Christmas has meaning for my neighbor's cat; although I am fairly sure that has more to do with tinsel in the moment than the glories of eternity.

doyle said...

Why should Christmas have anything to do with light? Or "glories of eternity"?