A few weeks ago, some generous congregants gifted us with some veggies from their garden. Fresh veggies are a delight! They always taste better than their store-bought cousins, but occasionally they bring less desired critters with them. And so it was that as I peeled the cabbage for our dinner, a dark green caterpillar reared its head up at me, clearly perturbed that I disrupted its own meal. Unfortunately, I lost sight of our visitor in a kerfuffle with a three-year-old. Basil and Caitlin found him a short time later and, because they are infatuated with anything cute and little, Alfie the Caterpillar was immediately inducted into our family. For more than a week, Alfie sat in a jar on our dining room table eating more of the cabbage he arrived on; however, by the end of that week he started acting strange. Slowly we watched as he drew leaves around himself and began to produce a fluffy white silk. Each day at breakfast and dinner we checked on his incremental progress. Now he has stopped moving and his skin has gone crusty and slack and turned a tan leaf-brown color. We’ve got a bit of hope for what he might become and some concern that this is all he will ever be. Either way, there is nothing else to do but wait and see.
How is your own transformation going? The first month of 2025 is almost over. Are there any New Year’s resolutions holding strong? Did you make any at all? Perhaps they have dwindled and dried out and you too feel a bit like Alfie, stuck between who you are and who you want to be. So much of life is in this in between and certainly that is true of our spiritual lives as well. The Bible talks about how God’s Kingdom was inaugurated with the coming of Jesus and yet it is still being realized. That we have been saved and yet we are working out our salvation. That we are new creations and yet all creation groans as in labor for this transformation to be revealed. It seems to me that two things are constant: life is always changing for better or worse and God is faithful even in it. So, press on in your transformation and be gentle as it happens. In the words of Mary Oliver from her poem, “Don’t Worry,”
Things take the time they take.
Don't worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?
Whatever road you are on and for however long, God is with you and only time will reveal what kind of saint is being born. I hope that Alfie the Cabbageworm is well on his way to becoming a pieris rapae, a small white butterfly. Transformation is hard and I’m not sure if our house is the most conducive habitat for Alfie, but there is a three-year old rooting hard for him. We’ll have to see what he becomes.