Fireflies Shine Brightly Against the Darkness of Night…

The humbling rumble of nature recently occupied the night. Storms settled in over the Vermont hills and mountains. Circled overhead. Stillness interrupted as was our quiet and our rest.

Fear filled the darkness of the night. The dog panted in distress. Nervously he paced. My heart raced. Electricity unpredictably flashed across the sky. Lightening vivid. Thunder echoed

throughout the Pomfret hills. The storm returned again and again. What seemed like endless hours was in fact, not.

Once the storm finally waned my 14-year-old dog was slow to calm. Caution unified us. A gentle display of light randomly appeared outside my bedroom window. The storm had ended. The violence had passed. The rapid pops of light were delightfully unexpected. One, two…a dozen or so. Fireflies danced. Thoughts of Fantasia and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue mentally accompanied the show I was privy to. Grace filled the darkness. Faith in the night restored. Rewarded. Sometimes it is in our deepest darkness that we begin to see the light…

“What hath night to do with sleep?” John Milton, Paradise Lost