Freeing the Firefly: Discovering an Uncontainable God

Growing up I used to catch fireflies with my neighborhood friends. I'd grab a jar from the kitchen and some plastic wrap and go outside at dusk in hot pursuit. After I caught a few, I'd throw some grass in the jar, put the plastic wrap over the top, and place the jar by my bedside. But when I woke up in the morning, the fireflies would be dead. Because when you keep a firefly in a jar, you suffocate it. You don't give it the space it needs to live into the light and reality of what it is. Growing up I had a pretty clear and boxed in idea of God too. I had God labeled as he and as this rather than that. God was contained so the sacred could be the sacred and the secular the secular (supposedly). But then I leaned into the reality of life. I encountered some of the complexities of the world. And I realized that by boxing in God, I had killed my ability to see just how expansive God really was. I had to let my God in the box die so I could learn to see God again. And like looking at a backyard full of fireflies without the motivation of putting them into a jar, I began to see the light of God everywhere. In all religions. In all people. In all places.