I started this post months ago, and I keep forgetting about it. What do cicadas, Michelangelo and the Olympics have to do with each other? They are the three things I was completely fascinated by this summer. Seriously, completely enthralled with.
The 17 year cicadas came in May. I vaguely remember them 17 years ago, but all I remember then was them flying and dive bombing and exploding on my windshield. This year, I watched them from start to finish. Every morning, the kids and I would walk to the bus via the park next door. We'd watch the cicadas climb up the trees and fall backwards out of their shells. Before our eyes they would turn colors. Gross. Fascinating. Amazing. Weird.
We watched the piles of shells grow under the trees.
We watched the holes in our yard grow exponentially. This was at the beginning. There are amazing amounts of holes!!
Cicadas everywhere.
And the noise. All the noise, noise, noise. It was unbelievable. At their peak, it sounded like three layers: everyone in the neighborhood mowing their lawn, rattle snacks and sirens.
And then the flying started. They flew everywhere. And the dive bombed. And they flew in car windows. That's when it became far less fascinating and straight up obnoxious. Thankfully, that wasn't terribly long.
Most of the trees ended up looking like this with the dead ends. The cicadas would lay their eggs in the branches would end up killing them. All summer when it would storm, there would be the end of branches all over the neighborhood.
This was an amazing video the kids and I watched at the beginning of the cicada season which helped us understand and see the process so we could then watch it with our own eyes.
And then there's Michelangelo. We saw so much of his art in
Italy. I became so fascinated by his art, his mind and his life. So I've been doing a lot of reading. Michelangelo is what helped me to understand the idea of EXPERIENCE. I've learned about him multiple times over the years in history and/or art and it all sounded like the teach on Peanuts. But then I saw it with my own eyes. And I learned about where he was from. And it totally piqued my interest. It's the concept of experiencing things that moves you towards desiring to learn about something. So how do we help people experience their faith in such a meaningful way that they want to dig in and learn and follow? It something I've been thinking about for months.
And the Olympics. Oh my - I love the Olympics. I love the stories and I love the sports. I was secretly thankful it was so blazing hot during this summer's olympics because I didn't feel bad being inside watching them on tv all day. Ben and I stayed up far too late every single night watching the coverage. At the end of the Olympics they showed a montage of the two weeks events and I had seen most of them. I love, love, love the Olympics.
So, over the summer, these were my things. I loved them all and invested myself in them. I invested time and energy, learning and watching and talking about them. I saw God in these things in such different ways.
