September 2024
In the last week I have been intrigued by poetry and stories that I’ve encountered about monarch butterflies and dragonflies. These two insects are often used as symbols in church because of their amazing transformations. They become metaphors for the resurrection as we see a chrysalis break open to reveal the newly emerging butterfly, or new life as the dragonfly emerges from the back of the nymph to spread its wings as a creature utterly transformed. That metamorphosis from terrestrial or aquatic to taking flight is something extraordinary. I’m humbled by the incredible effort that it takes to get to these utterly wondrous magical states.
Imagine a dragonfly spending ninety percent of its life underwater, for some varieties up to five years, only to emerge for a matter of months. Then consider that this process has been going on since the time of the dinosaurs. It is no wonder that dragonflies are incorporated into religious practices from Japan to our own indigenous people. What an amazing story of persistence over time, and the spectacular witness of momentary transformation for each generation before the cycle repeats. One researcher was waxing poetic about dragonflies moving over great distances at over thirty miles an hour, how they see from the ultraviolet through the infrared light spectrum, they see so many times more colors than we are capable of perceiving. What inspirations of nature.
Those Monarch butterflies are miraculous in a whole different way as they begin their migration south in late summer and early fall. I can hardly imagine these beautiful, delicate wings fluttering on the breeze to travel as far as 3,000 miles over the course of eight to nine months. Part of what is remarkable is that they will travel to a place that they have never known. Somehow the destination is woven into the fabric of their being. Those butterflies on their return journey seem to fly only for a few weeks, before needing to stop and pass the baton on to the next generation. The journeys back to the northern most habits appear to be a multi-generational effort.
Imagine these journeys of transformation for which the destination is written in our souls, yet that might take generations to fully realize. That can sound like the life of the church, or like our individual journeys. We live in a society where our attention spans have grown shorter and shorter. We expect change to be instantaneous and often we also want it to be self-serving. Imagine if we were following the course written in our souls knowing that it might take generations to get to the destination and still, we need to do our part. We live in a society where we are often distracted by whatever the loudest voice or flashiest ad may offer, imagine if we slowed down and took the time to listen to the story of transformation that was written on our souls from the beginning of creation, even before the time of the dinosaurs. I love how Buddhism speaks of quieting ourselves so that we might get out of our own way and realize the truth that is inherent in each of us. In our tradition it’s too easy to think that we need to pursue God's truth instead of looking for how it was written within us in love from our very beginnings. The journey of faith invites us to align ourselves with that path toward transformation for which God awesomely and wondrously created us.
Summer is drawing to close, we will start seeing students and teachers resume their migrations to classrooms. The church will return to its regular schedule of two services at 8:00 and 9:30 on Sunday mornings. We will all begin another season on the journey. I pray that we might be trusting in the awesome transformation that God instills in each of us, and in us generationally. I don’t know where “church” is going in the years to come. I don’t know where our own spiritual paths will suddenly grow wings and fly… but I trust that God has woven into our souls, and into the fabric of the universe, a path that leads us toward life, and wonder, and transformation that is best pursued with a commitment to the long arc of history.