As Susan and I walked home from church last Wednesday, after tutoring children in a program called “Read and Feed,” I noticed a large brown bug crawling slowly across the neighborhood road. 

“I’ll bet that’s a cicada,” I said. Sure enough, we spotted another large nymph just a few feet away, then another, and another. Moving over to the roadside, we spotted others emerging from the soil and stumbling blindly through the grass.

They were all going in the same direction: toward the nearest trees. Over the next several weeks, they’ll climb up tree trunks or other vertical surfaces and cling there until their bodies transform and they molt into adults, splitting the back of the thin exoskeleton to emerge with wings and leave the hollow form of their former shape behind. 

Once airborne, the males begin to sing in hopes of attracting a mate, vibrating a thin membrane on the sides of their bodies at a fever pitch. They form an intentional chorus with other nearby males, often gathering in trees to attract females flying through the neighborhood. In sufficient numbers, the whine of their collective singing can rival the sound of a siren or jet engine. 

When females arrive, they are spoiled for choice and respond more demurely, flicking their wings toward the preferred male. 

After mating, the female cuts slits into the bark of a tree, exposing the juicy xylem layer beneath, and lays her eggs. Adult cicadas no longer eat, so they die shortly after mating. Once the eggs hatch, the tiny nymphs begin to feed on the tree’s rising sap until they grow large enough to fall to the ground, where they actively tunnel beneath the surface to feed on the roots of grasses, graduating to tree roots as they mature. 

That is the cicada’s life for the next two to 17 years, depending on the species. “Annual cicadas” emerge between two and five years later, while “periodical cicadas” live underground for either 13 or 17 years. Then, cued by an internal clock and waiting for the right temperature, the nymphs emerge to begin the cycle anew.

We’ve all seen attention-grabbing articles pointing to a rare convergence: the 13-year brood in the Southeast and the 17-year brood in the Midwest will emerge in the same year—the first time that has happened since 1806. In a few places where the broods overlap, noise levels could be alarming. 

Is that not one of the strangest life stories on the planet? One might imagine it as science-fiction folderol. 

But periodical cicadas, for all their weirdness, are a part of God’s good creation, filling a niche in the larger order. The ruckus they raise may aggravate humans who share the same world, but their carcasses will provide a glut of unexpected bounty for hungry birds, bats, small mammals, and amphibians. 

Cicadas have their place in the world. As odd as it is, they fill it admirably. 

Humans are so much more complex and live so much longer that it may seem bizarre to compare them with cicadas, but we also have a place in the world. Unlike cicadas, we’re not driven by instinct to a single goal. Though preservation of the species also undergirds much of human behavior, we have far more choices about how we will live, how we relate to others and how we interact with our environment. 

As a subset of humans, those who follow Jesus are called to treat others with love, to work for justice, and to make the world a better place. 

Can anyone hear our song?