Caterpillar Soup

A New Year is here!

But newness is not instantaneous.   Newness is dependent on endings.

And so a question:  2016 has ended -- but have you ended anything?   

Or...are you just carrying the 'same old, same old' into the new year.  You know:  the same 'baggage' -- assumptions -- habits -- 'wishful thinking.'

And so the question:  2016 has ended -- but have you ended anything?

For the most part, we view endings as bad.  But endings are not bad, they are just normal, a natural part of the rhythm of life.   But we don’t comprehend the normalcy of endings -- because endings necessitate loss -- and loss stinks; it's a bummer.  

And so we resist endings.  But remember:  you can't get longevity without loss.  For the elongation, the extension of our years, including the year ahead -- is dependent on letting go, of releasing, some aspect of what we have always known.  

Jesus teaches this, in John 12:24ff

Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.  John 12:24-25, The Message.

So too for our lives; unless we are willing to become ‘dead to the world,’ entering into necessary endings, we never sprout, experiencing life in all its fullness.  

A while back Scientific America shared the developmental process of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.  Now most fixate on the outcome of the process:  the butterfly.   But a butterfly would never emerge if the caterpillar was not willing to ‘die to self,’ entering into difficult loss and endings. 

As children…[we learn how] a caterpillar morphs into a butterfly…[beginning]… with a very hungry caterpillar hatching from an egg...But what does that radical transformation entail...First, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out...Once a caterpillar has disintegrated all of its tissues except for the imaginal discs, those discs use the protein-rich soup all around them to fuel the rapid cell division required to form the wings, antennae, legs, eyes, genitals and all the other features of an adult butterfly or moth…  Ferris Jabr, “How Does A Caterpillar Turn Into Butterfly” Scientific America, April 10, 2012,   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/

And so a glorious butterfly only occurs, if disintegration and dissolvement occur first; if caterpillar soup is allowed to take place.   In like manner, glorious life does not occur for us, unless dissolvement occurs first, as we allow life to ‘get soupy’ on occasion.   And so where does life need to get soupy for you; where do you need to allow necessary endings to occur?

Don't be surprised if fear rises as you grapple with that question.  For though endings are normal and life-giving, we do resist them; in fact, we resist them with amped apprehension. Why? A macro reason is the pain and suffering endings frequently require.  But on a micro level, there are many reasons; Henry Cloud itemizes a number of them. 

•         We are afraid of the unknown.

•          We fear confrontation

•          We are afraid of hurting someone.

•          We are afraid of...the sadness associated with the ending…

•          We do not know the right words to use.

•          We have had too many...painful endings...so we avoid another. 

•          When...forced upon us, we do not know how to process them... 

•          We do not learn from them, so we repeat the same mistakes…
                 Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings (New York: Harper Collins, 2010) 9

Undoubtedly you could add more.  But the critical factor is becoming aware that the avoidance of loss is expected, as we ‘come to grips’ with the endings of life; we all have reasons why we don’t want to things to stop and be different.  

Last summer, my son Peter married Katie Rider, an indescribable gift from God.  This was a much-anticipated wedding since we had prayed along-side Peter, for years, that God would lead into his life a treasured life partner.   And so you would think this new beginning would be a season of pure and unadulterated joy; and largely, it was.   But ramping up to Peter’s wedding day, I also experienced a fair measure of grief mingled-in with my joy; Peter and I had been close for years, and I feared things would now be different. 

Talking over my mixed emotion with another dad who had married off a son, he clarified there was good reason for my concern, offering up some well-worn advice.  “You know what they say,” he began.  “"A son's a son 'til he takes a wife, a daughter's a daughter all of her life."   Well, I stewed about such sentiment up to Peter’s wedding day, a wedding where I also served as officiate; but before walking out with Peter to begin the wedding ceremony, I could contain my fear no longer.  Turning to Peter, literally right before we processed out, I just blurted out:   “You’ll still call me, won’t you; we’ll still be close?”  And with that he assured me:  “Of course Dad!”  

And we proceeded on, and now beyond, with my amped anxiety for naught; I not only gained a cherished daughter, I gained a reshaped son.  Reshaped in the sense, he was still Peter, but a more differentiated, 'enhanced' Peter.  

Something did end; the last vestiges of dependence on mom and dad; but something also begin:  a more hopeful, happy, man, beholden only to God and his wife.

And so there are understandable reasons why we avoid ‘the soup’ of life.  But if we’re attentive, we’ll awaken to a counter-intuitive discovery that endings/loss, though real, and yes painful, result, in God’s time, in a reshaped reality – which is good.   

Now, on occasion, God times confirmation of His goodness in the near term; your son turns and says, no worries; of course, Dad.  But more often, God time’s confirmation of His goodness is in the far term, requiring patience, perseverance, and trust.  

In-between, hard honesty is required, as yes, we trust God for goodness.  But acknowledge, its a process which requires 'caterpillar soup' -- and the necessity of living with some gooiness -- for a season. 

But from the gooiness God does promise goodness, if we just give God 'some time' -- the time of our lives.