MIGRATION HAPPENS

“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.’”     Genesis 12:1

I wrote this blog last year but did not submit it. Here come the Miller Moths again. Reading it today, as a moth flutters around the ceiling, I think it is still appropriate. Although current events have changed during this past year, cruelty remains a serious issue. 

Last May 2023 an article in the Denver Post caught my attention. Expecting something about problems at the southern US border, I nearly missed a delightful story. No, this was about an invasion of the State of Colorado. The Migration of the Miller Moths. It happens every year in late May and early June when lava of the Army Cutworm, that have been munching on roots in the soils of Kansas and eastern Colorado, hatch, lay their eggs and take off for the Rocky Mountains. Millions and millions and millions of the little brown dusty pesky fellows. They have fulfilled their purpose in life to contribute the next generation and attracted by light head west toward the lights of the city and our homes. We know the time has come when one morning one opens the door to retrieve the newspaper and is greeted by the newcomers.  Lucky folks may only have a few moths while unlucky ones may have a houseful. Even having experienced it before, it is always disconcerting to have them meandering around the house and flapping frantically under lamp shades. There is much discussion about how to deal with them from swatting them (that leaves a nasty brown smudge on the wall) to finding alternative ways of distracting them outside and turning off household lights. We had a couple of guests this past year and one joined us at the symphony.  

The article went on to explain how important this migration is. And please do not kill them. They are up to nothing but good. The little guys arrive just as hungry birds are returning for the summer and food is scarce. Their dusty bodies collect pollen that drops off on the next flower they visit and help pollinate another new plant generation. 

It all got me thinking about migration. About how it affects the world in general; how it contributes to the current generations; how it blends cultures. Growing up in Massachusetts I was aware of tightly clannish Irish families who only attended St Patricks’ RC Church and the tightly clannish Italians who only attended St Anthony’s and their distress when their children married each other and created a generation of Irish Italian-Americans, part of the next generation of Americans. 

I am reminded of Abram, who packed up his family and all their animals and possessions and began to move to a place he did not know, trusting God knew where they were meant to be. First the Lord gave him all the land he could see to the east and west and north and south. Later, he was given all the land from the great river of Egypt to the Euphrates. The whole story in Genesis 12-14 tells of the beginnings of land ownership. Land that already is populated by other peoples but given to Abram and his migrating family. 

Did these people not change things as they traveled? And did they not change forever the place they landed? Abram, who believed in one God, became the Father of the three major monotheistic religions. His descendants, Jewish and Muslin, have been migrating ever since. Not until 1948 were the Jews given a space with defined borders with the beginning of what is now Israel.  

No sooner had I thought it might be fun to research the positive effects of migration than I landed in a chapter my book group was reading that horrified me. In detail, we read about what had happened to the native people, living in “New England”, when the migration of Puritans arrived. The stories I heard in school in Massachusetts, about how the friendly Indians saved the Puritans the first winter, about Indians teaching settlers to raise corn, and how their ultimate demise from smallpox was not the complete sad story.  

Some Indians became Christians. But I was not told about how the Indians, who became Christians, were isolated in their converted towns foreshadowing the future reservation system. “Taking the Indian out of the Indian”, became the model for educating native children in Indian Boarding Schools. White Christians visited Indians in their homes but did not welcome Indians into theirs. Stories about white cruelty toward native peoples were never mentioned in my school. Nor had I heard about a black man, who had been hung, remained hanging when Paul Revere rode by that famous night to warn the settlers of a pending British attack. 

We all are becoming aware of cruelty to indigenous peoples in the Americas: The Trail of Tears, Indian Boarding Schools and The Sand Creek Massacre. We are struggling to deal with understanding the cruelty of slavery and its aftermath, as well as accounting for the history of treatment of Japanese Americans.

But I have run out of my personal word allowance for a blog, and I have not spoken about my vision of the Beautiful Blue Planet as it is seen from space and how the Creator might be envisioning its activities. My Celtic Spirituality understanding needs time to ponder this. I will continue with my blog next time.   

Shared By: Ann Dolbier

Celtic Way Contributor & Board Member