Flying Broken

A tale of three butterflies.

The first butterfly we found while hiking. A perfect specimen, completely still, stretched out in the middle of the path. I wanted to take it home and display it. As I touched it, its antennae waved, still alive. It looked so beautiful. Why wasn’t it flying?

That butterfly haunts me. 

Contrast that to the second butterfly, a feisty swallowtail floating in the flowers on my deck. She kept flitting by my face like a fashion model working the camera. She was the most ragged butterfly I’d ever seen. Half of one wing and tail were gone. The other wing had a bite out of its side. It didn’t stop her. She was doing what she was created for, dipping in, pollinating, spreading life. Free in all her beauty and brokenness.

That butterfly gave me hope.

Both had gone through the miracle of metamorphosis, emerging from their cocoons, shedding their old identities as caterpillars. They couldn’t go back if they tried.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

I wonder if the first butterfly had looked in a mirror, would it still see itself as a caterpillar? What would make it believe it could fly? I ask myself the same question. What do I see when I look in the mirror of Scripture? 

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18

Do I believe that I’ve been created to bring life, to be beautiful and broken at the same time? I’ve wasted too much time crawling around like a worm when I was transformed to fly—even broken. The “Lie Guy” tells me it’s too late to start flying now.

The third butterfly is La Mariposa, the Butterfly Woman, an old Hopi woman who emerges once a year to a waiting audience. She dances out with her long rope of gray hair, a saggy body, and a beautiful native outfit. In all her glory and imperfections. 

In her book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes, “The Hopi butterfly dancer must be old because she represents the soul that is old. She is wide of thigh and broad of rump because she carries so much. She is the . . . mender . . . the rememberer . . .” Broken, old, wide, and yet beautiful, wise, and life-giving.

That butterfly gives me courage. 

I need to look in the mirror and remember who I am. And that it’s never too late to unfurl my wings and fly broken. 

And to know that one day all will be made new, as it should be, and all that is broken will be whole and beautiful. 

But there’s far more to life for us. We’re citizens of high heaven! We’re waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ, who will transform our earthy bodies into glorious bodies like his own. He’ll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him. Philippians 3:20-12 Message