Three Keys to Flight
Today I’d like to talk to you all about butterflies! You know, those beautiful winged creatures that flit across our line of sight every once and a while causing us to pause and admire their beauty? Butterflies. It seems so easily that we can envision the butterflies as they float across blossoms, but we don’t often remember the caterpillar inching across the branch. It seems fitting that I should delve into this metaphor. The metamorphosis of the butterfly works well as we look at our theme: despair yet hope.
We are all like butterflies. We are beautiful (or handsome as the case may be) we are unique, and we are precious (or maybe even fragile). Throughout our lives, we have experienced a lot of change as well. We have gone through several metamorphoses. We will continue to do so as we grow. It’s why I want to give you a few things I have learned. I call them: Three Keys to Flight.
1. When life flips you upside down its time for change
What that change look like may be different for each person and each situation. What flip made you come to the Jedi Community? Ponder this. Change is never easy. It may mean shedding skin or a burden that you just cannot continue to carry. It may mean dying to self or releasing your old self-perception and taking on a new set of wings. It’s scary because sometimes losing our old ways, our old comforts, our old patterns of thinking in order to flourish, is a big risk. But for me if I hadn’t taken the risk, I would never have known all that I was capable of. What risks are you happy you took? How have they shaped you? Ponder that
2 The struggle is real; it’s also necessary
When we are finally butterflies, but we don’t know it yet, we may ask “Where do I go?” “How do I get out of here?” “What do I do?” We may still think of ourselves as helpless caterpillars, incapable. Until we realize we have tools. Until we recall we have gifts to push ourselves out of the cocoon we may have gotten stuck in (the comfort zone). What gifts, what talents, what tools, what resources have you been neglecting?
3. We should never let ourselves be defined by the cocoons we have shed, the struggles we have faced, or the labels we have carried.
Have you ever seen a butterfly carrying its cocoon? Have you ever heard someone say of a graceful fluttering butterfly skimming the petals of roses, “Wow that’s a really beautiful butterfly, considering it came out of that ugly cocoon?” Or maybe even, “Girl, I don’t really like that butterfly, because her cocoon was so not what I’m used to.” No, most people are too busy admiring the lovely essence of the butterfly to even give thought to where it came from or how it got there. Never let anyone judge you by the cocoon you emerged from. Cocoons do NOT define butterflies, they refine them. Cocoons, struggles, labels, stigma, they are not and should not define of the gracefulness of your character. A caterpillar doesn’t carry its cocoon once it has completed metamorphosis, because the cocoon has already served its purpose. What baggage are you carrying?
Ponder all of these things. Remember, you are a butterfly, beautiful, precious, unique. Its time to fly. May the Force be with you all
