Cicadian Rhythms

What a day! Students are back, Drew is getting up earlier, Kiel needs transportation, the day slams into existence before your eyes are barely open! There is no keeping of any schedule. You just do what's next on the list as soon as you can address it - and pray you keep up! We are jerked into full academic mode sans gentleness.

This week my days are stretched unusually long as I return to work at 9pm after a long day to train a new Evening Building Supervisor. I knew it would be grueling staying until midnight, but there is no help for it. Somebody has to show the new kid on the block how to do the job, and some things can't be understood out of context. So I step into her time frame until she is comfortable being on her own. It's only a few days, but it taxes my limited endurance.

Tonight I had seminary class until 10, so she is already on her own for an hour. She has enough to keep her going until I arrive. I settle in for the lecture on church activity during AD 30 to AD 150, trying to wrap my brain around the early church fathers', experience what they encountered, think with a first century mindset. It is difficult to see why some issues were such a big deal then - after all, circumcision is a pretty moot point these days. Still, it provides interesting discussion material.



We break at 8:30 for our personal faith training in the upstairs chapel. We explore God's presence in the mundane and normal, talk about how God touches our lives in the ordinary, learn to appreciate the eternal moments in our interactions with life. Ten pm comes round before I realize, and I make my way down the stairs and out into the dark night, relishing the August evening dappled with the warm glow of streetlights and lighted windows.



I take a deep breath of fresh air to clear my head. Cicadas are singing lustfully, their drone punctuated with tree peepers' high pitched mating calls and crickets' courting calls, their laid back pace indicative of the chill in the night air. I stand for a minute before plunging into the library world to take up the challenges of the circulation desk at this late and hopping hour.



The music of the night fills every inch of sky, inviting the whole world to dance, to join the chorus and sing. I glance down the sidewalk to see who is watching. Groups of student gather here and there, chatting, laughing, hugging. They pay me no mind. I twirl about freely, letting the weight of long hours slip away. My circadian rhythm is indented by the cicadian song. It feels good, like skinny dipping in a heated whirlpool, floating, lightly massaged with the effervescence of the insect symphony. I hum under my breath, songs I am working on for PrayerSong. How happy to have summer wrapped about you despite the hard day. I shall sleep well if ever I get to bed.