The World Needs More Fireflies

A Review of Kendall Johnson’s More Fireflies by Kate Flannery

If anyone can find a spark of light in the darkness, it’s Kendall Johnson. You might think this talent comes from his experience over the years as a psychologist specializing in the treatment of trauma or his having weathered (at least in part; he’s still on the journey) the ravages of the Vietnam War. But this rare talent for bringing light into the darkness comes from his heart: his deep understanding of the good that human beings are capable of. He’s been a first-hand witness to this good, even while mired in the basest cruelty of the worst in our human natures.

And he knows that it is important that the rest of us, while trying to live out what’s been handed to us in this world, do not forget that the human soul is capable of generosity, grace, and love.

After his first volume, Fireflies in Darkness, structured similarly to this second in a series (with more to come, we hope!), readers begged for more. I’m not exaggerating. There was some serious begging going on. Johnson makes reference to this in his beginning “Note to the Reader,” but he understates it a bit and says that he, too, needed another dose of fireflies in the face of a world that seems to be getting bleaker every day.

Johnson has chosen the perfect, minimalist structure for laying all this out for us: on the left side of each open page is a report summarizing a brief moment from one of the continuing news cycles, or the results of a recent poll or scientific research, none of it pleasant or uplifting, most of it soul-wrenching. Each is a small but devastating look at our world at its worst. Just below that report is a small tercet, a kind of opening ode to what comes next. And what comes next, on the right side of the open pages, is a small gem of a story, a revelation, of individual compassion, courage, or love. In a world of hurt, we are handed a recipe for healing. In response to prejudice, misfortune, or hate, we are shown another way to live.

Part of the magic of Johnson’s writing is in the tercet, the three-line lyric poem, which acts as an energy-rich conduit to open up the reader’s mind, after having been shown how destructive humans can be. It’s that singing poetry that invites the reader to consider the world on a larger scale beyond the bleakness that strikes us in our faces almost daily. That poetic bridge invites us to enter a more spiritual, intuitive level. That’s what poetry does, and it works stunningly here.

One of Johnson’s pieces begins with a report of surging traffic deaths worldwide following the COVID pandemic shutdowns. Highway mortality rates had been on a steady decline since the 1940s due to an increase in auto safety, regulation, and speed limits. “That all changed in 2020,” says Johnson. Erratic driving, anger on the roads, and aggressiveness among drivers was the result of swirling uncertainties and anxieties stemming from COVID-related changes in the world. The tercet which follows this report:

as you enter a sky

milky way lights your way

back to beginnings

Here, the tercet sends you as from a slingshot into deep time, with a view to galactic questions and thoughts of things beyond ourselves. We journey into an expansiveness that is almost a shock to the system. But Johnson then touches down softly on the next page with a firefly of a story about Agatha Christie, abandoned by her first husband with a small child to support. She spends four years resisting the idea of suicide. Then she takes a trip on The Orient Express, a journey that will take her to a new and lasting relationship and a career as a world-acclaimed writer.

Johnson understands, better than almost any other writer I know, that it’s not enough simply to mourn the fact that evil and injustice seem to be spilling forth from and overtaking humankind. Yes, that’s part of the therapy of healing, but by itself, it will fall short. Johnson is wise enough to comprehend that on the deepest levels. He confronts us with everything there is to despair about but then gently leads us to the antidote: an example, sometimes small but always shining, of those things that deserve remembering. There’s nothing simplistic or smarmy about his showing us what is redeeming in human nature. Nor does he lecture. He simply lays it out and asks us to consider the possibilities for ourselves.

This is Kendall Johnson at his artistic best: a quiet healer of souls. He’s on a mission, and I, for one, want to sign up and join in.