the very hungry caterpillar

"We need to deeply trust and allow both our own dying and our own certain resurrections just as Jesus did. This is the full pattern of transformation." - rohr

there is nothing easy about trust or dying. even allowing can be hard, and resurrection probably hurts too. but transformation, it has to be full.  imagine a caterpillar half way to being a butterfly- one wing and half the legs? it would be a disaster. no, the dying is necessary. the resurrections too. 

except it's easier if your an insect. trust and allowing are covered by instinct. choice and fear are eliminated. you just do what you do. your slippery body tells you it's time to make a cocoon. to die to your old self. your known. your ways. your limitations that you did thatn't know were limitations. you know your feet and how there are many and they take you places. you know the way that you see - straight ahead, a hindered perspective, but you can't conceive of more. you can't fathom wings- the travel speed, the silkiness, the elegance, the freedom. you can't imagine the breadth of perspective that comes from seeing the world from above. 

even if you did know the good life of the butterfly, you might still not choose it. because new things are scary, even better new things. after all, why should you trust wings to keep you in the air? and don't they get so tired up there flapping away? how can you hide if your not near a leaf to quickly duck behind? no, you might prefer many pairs of legs and easy access to shelter, a smaller but known life.  

and then there is the process! surely nobody would want to go through that! the cocoon looks dark and claustrophobic and lonely. the loosing of legs and the growing of wings must hurt. you don't know how to be a butterfly, you've already figured out how to be a caterpillar. you decide the whole thing is best to be avoided.

but. then you get hungry, really hungry. you start to eat to fill up and be satisfied. you don't even know where this hunger is coming from, but you can't stop eating. the hunger is necessary for the transformation. it's the inkling that there is more. we fill up first with healthy things- things that have satisfied us in the past, just like in "the very hungry caterpillar" book, leaves then fruit. but when those things don't do it, and our hunger has turned insatiable, we move on to whatever we can get our hands on. then we are left full of the wrong things and with a stomach ache.  from this place, as we lie down hurting from our failed attempts to meet that desperate need, we are ready to trust and allow the dying. 

so we let the cocooning happen, crawl inside the darkness, sleep in the unknown- because we have nothing left. our many legs couldn't reach where we needed to go, they are so tired that our fear succumbs to our need for rest. whatever the outcome- that endless hunger- had to end.

and time happens. each cocoon is different. no butterfly knows what another butterfly's cocooning felt like- but they share the memory of the thirst and exhaustion that led them there.  it's been noticed that those who stayed hungry longer and those who ate through everything they could find, who consumed each last crumb before that undeniable ache lay them down, will take longer in the cocoon. and it's been said it hurts more to loose their legs and grow their wings, but when they come out, they are usually the grandest.  
 
the cocoon is a safe place. a protected place. safe enough for the birth of our truest selves. God indwelling is meant to abandon legs and fly. to know freedom and exquisite beauty.  in the cocoon, all our caterpillarness is used to grow our butterflyness- to nourish the transformation, and our old selves are consumed in the process. all our sticky legs become our deep colors and intricate  patterns. the memories of our desperate search for food become our boldness as we uncurl new, wet wings. the memory of our ache, our longing, becomes our bravery when we first leave the branch and trust the air. 

who we were becomes who we will be.

full transformation demands the death of things. a black and white world sacrificed for color. full transformation requires time-outs and certain silences, and a willingness to give up, to enter in, to trust and allow. but there is a certain resurrection, and oh to have wings and fly!