I recently heard it suggested that church should aspire to be like the butterfly: beautiful and carefree, our days of darkness and enshroudedness past, existing only to reproduce and to bring joy. A lovely image – and I’m sure it resonated with those who needed it. For me, though, it registered a little … partial. There is so much about my Christian journey – raw, real, difficult-but-hope-filled good stuff – that is not described by such an analogy: times of personal struggle and limitation (often, for me, in the form of depression and anxiety) in which my faith is no less real, and God is no less faithful; times of heartache as I learn to lament the brokenness of a world in which there's no getting away from the fact that new creation life is ‘not yet’ as well as ‘now’. It’s also, if you stretch the metaphor, a little bleak – the existence of a butterfly is famously fleeting, while the Christian hope is of something altogether more enduring.
As I pondered this, a different image sprang to mind – inspired by recent “weather events”, and triggering something of a poetic dialogue with someone you might think I should know better than to argue with...
UNDER THE SUN
And all at once the snow was gone, and there,
Beside the road, the usual little crowd:
Their faces closed, their backs a little bowed,
But standing, still, and grateful for some air.
Still golden, splendid still in the attire
They were given; regal, maybe, but not proud;
Hard-pressed, perhaps, but they would not be floored,
Alive to means the fall could not impair.
They know what time it is. The time was then
To dance, but they know other days than these –
Or rather months: in darkness, hid from view,
When being, still, is all that’s to be done.
Remember, while you flutter in the breeze,
That there are seasons to be buried with them too.
Carolyn Whitnall, 2018.
"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:8-18)
(See also, e.g.: 1 Corinthians 15:35-44, Matthew 6:19-21, Romans 12:15, Matthew 6:25-34, 1 Peter 2:9, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Romans 14:4...)
[Thumbnail image from our front garden via my phone!]
As I pondered this, a different image sprang to mind – inspired by recent “weather events”, and triggering something of a poetic dialogue with someone you might think I should know better than to argue with...
UNDER THE SUN
And all at once the snow was gone, and there,
Beside the road, the usual little crowd:
Their faces closed, their backs a little bowed,
But standing, still, and grateful for some air.
Still golden, splendid still in the attire
They were given; regal, maybe, but not proud;
Hard-pressed, perhaps, but they would not be floored,
Alive to means the fall could not impair.
They know what time it is. The time was then
To dance, but they know other days than these –
Or rather months: in darkness, hid from view,
When being, still, is all that’s to be done.
Remember, while you flutter in the breeze,
That there are seasons to be buried with them too.
Carolyn Whitnall, 2018.
"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:8-18)
(See also, e.g.: 1 Corinthians 15:35-44, Matthew 6:19-21, Romans 12:15, Matthew 6:25-34, 1 Peter 2:9, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Romans 14:4...)
[Thumbnail image from our front garden via my phone!]
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