Diocesan
Life Columns
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Bishop Paul's writes a monthly column for the Diocesan Newspaper, Diocesan
Life, edited by Communication
Minister, Bill Lewellis.
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On recognizing our destiny
A Story for Easter
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Diocesan Life, April 1997
Some years ago at a seminar in Ohio I heard a story that went
pretty much like what follows, at least in its main points. It
was told by a master story teller whose style I cannot recreate.
Nonetheless, it has been very much on my mind lately, as once again
I wonder what it is we are meant to do with fifty whole days of
Easter.
They could hardly believe what they were seeing. Seeming lighter
than air, gently flapping wings that defied anything stained glass
artists could create, the butterfly bobbed in the breeze that warm
afternoon.
They had always rejected as demented wishful thinking claims and
rumors that flying butterflies existed.
The butterfly was enjoying the moment. She watched the caterpillars
observing her. She did a few extra banks and turns for them - remembering
how, when she had been a young caterpillar, she had also thought
the rumors of flying caterpillars something of a bad joke.
Far below her, the caterpillars who watched the delicate beauty
of the 'flying caterpillar' struggled to make her apparent existence
fit into their existing thought frameworks. (Humans call these
frameworks 'paradigms.') Remember, if you are the size of a caterpillar,
falling into the grass or onto the sand hurts. If you spent a lot
of your day falling off of branches and leaves, being blown or
shaken loose off your path much of the time - if you had had your
caterpillar bones and teeth constantly jarred by falling - the
idea of flying was indeed a cruel joke. It was very hard for the
caterpillars to believe that a member of their own species had
found a way to keep from falling, a way to glide over the jolts
and pains they experienced each day.
It was a very hard stretch for them to give up their beliefs about
what caterpillars are and what they are here to do. To change their
beliefs would mean to change how they thought of themselves, and
what actions they would or could take. They were not prepared,
in any sense, to rise above their millennia-old patterns of thinking
about themselves just because one caterpillar seemed to be flying,
so they reacted in some interesting ways.
First there was the dismissive doubter. He insisted that it was
a trick of some kind, that they were all victims of a cruel hoax.
Stage magicians should not fool people about something so important.
Then came the techie caterpillar, pocket protector and all. She
reached into her satchel and brought out the latest Hewlett Packard
scientific calculator and tried to calculate all the factors that
would be involved in getting and maintaining a caterpillar aloft.
She was surprised to discover that it might in fact be faintly
possible for a caterpillar to fly. However, she immediately added, "I'm
no beta tester. You'll never get me up in one of those flimsy things
- at least not till they get all bugs out of it."
Caterpillars have a lot of knees to jerk. So you won't be surprised
to learn that the conservative caterpillar reminded everyone that
showing off was a sin, and that crawling along had been good enough
for their ancestors, and was certainly good enough for them. The
liberal caterpillar was offended by the waste of energy involved
in flying: there were insects who could use that energy to live,
and here this flying caterpillar just soared gently on. The fundamentalist
caterpillar was the angriest. "Sinful. Sinful. If God had meant
for us caterpillars to fly, God would have given us wings." End
of story.
"If God had meant us to fly, God would have given us wings." Hmm.
My friend in Ohio was smart enough to stop his story here and
let the listener work out the rest. What I have always wondered,
however, is what the butterfly would have thought upon hearing
any of those comments. Would she have thought about how for most
of her young life she had no clue and little help in discovering
what she was supposed to be? Would she have thought about the mysterious
force that led her to spin a cocoon around herself and experience
a kind of death? Perhaps she thought of the seemingly endless night
in which she was barely aware of herself as alive, but knowing
that she was changing. Perhaps she recalled the growing awareness
that she was indeed alive, and needed to fight her way out of the
chamber where she had lain so perfectly still while she became
something else. Perhaps she recalled the terror and then the sudden
exultation that came when she spread those beautiful wings for
the first time. What would she say to her earthbound cousins who
were so used to creeping around that they sort of liked it?
Soar we now where Christ has led, Following our exalted Head.
Made like him, like him we rise, Ours the cross, the grave, the
skies. (Charles Wesley)
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