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Teachers and Butterflies
By daniel | August 1, 2004
Beloved,
I had some thoughts for you this morning as I was reading and praying and considering; I decided I?d put them on paper. These thoughts hark back to some of our earlier discussions of pain and process. They?re for you, so you can take them or leave them. Here goes.
Jesus is your Master. I don?t mean Master-slave; I mean Master-apprentice. This is a very real relationship. It?s not that He?s like your master. He is your master, your teacher. That “follow me” thing is really close to the center of the meaning of your life. He doesn?t teach lessons. He teaches a Way. He doesn?t educate ? He transforms.
And He?s inside you. “I?ll send you another Strengthener ? when He comes, He will guide you into all truth.” “He has been with you, and will be in you.” “You have a sense from the Holy One, so that you can intuitively know all things.” Your teacher, your master is so committed to your wholeness and peace and vitality that He got into you ? a far more efficient arrangement than the one in the gospels (twelve men merely with Jesus).
I teach Bible in a high school. Sometimes I say, “Today we?ll learn this.” Then, “Okay, this is how this works.” Finally, “Let?s review; today we learned this.” Sometimes it?s really systematic like that. That format is great for imparting information, but it is a miserable failure for provoking change.
For that I have to be far more subtle and patient and risky. I ask the students to 1) trust me to guide them for a while and 2) to stick with me, trusting they will be better for it, that their hard work and momentary confusion will pay off, that it might well “click” in the end. I say something, I challenge a presupposition, I attack a cherished idea. I intentionally leave them with more questions than answers, and that ratio is key to growth. I make them talk to me about it, talk to each other. I take my time. I take their time. I never hurry, for to do that is to abort change in favor of education, and I love them far too much for that.
So, I wait. And I make them wait. Waiting is not passive. Waiting is creative. Things stew. They ferment and bubble and boil down and things change.
All the while I?m there. I?m very there, guiding the process, stirring the pot, applauding the connections they?re making and nurturing the growth gained. This is the fertile field of revelation. And revelation is what delivers my students from the world, the devil, religion, and themselves.
Jesus tends toward that second method. I learned it from Him.
I?d like to encourage you to trust your Teacher. Be comfortable ? at least willing ? to give the questions time. Don?t be afraid of Jesus. He isn?t safe, but He?s good. Believe He?s a brilliant Master, and that He?s carefully provoking and guiding and completing change in you. Don?t despise the waiting. Just hope. Jesus never drops the ball.
Another thing. Butterflies. Caterpillars become butterflies by weaving a chrysalis around themselves and slowly turning to goop. It?s a kind of death. They melt. It?s rough. Then they break out as something new, something they never could have been without that time in the bag, dissolving, losing themselves to change.
And they need every last second in that chrysalis. If you break the cocoon for them, or even help it along a little, the process is aborted and the winged beauty will never fly.
I have learned not to break another?s chrysalis. I won?t do it no matter how painful the process appears. I have also learned not to despise my times in the cocoons. We all have to weave one now and again, from time to time letting the Spirit melt away who we think we are, abandoning ourselves to a good and wise Creator to dissolve us and remake us over and over again. You can?t hurry stuff like that.
So, God won?t. He won?t make it faster or easier. He?ll just make you better and freer and fuller and more alive. But He loves you too much to make it easy.
But there?s something about that that seems cruel. Like God sews us up in this little bag, blind and small and weak, and watches to see how we?ll do. But that?s an inaccurate view of what happens in the chrysalis-seasons. Who turns the soup into the butterfly? It?s not the caterpillar. The caterpillar is the soup, helpless to do anything more than creative waiting.
It?s not the caterpillar?s job to change. It?s her job to be changed by Someone Else.
Because God sews Himself up into the bag with us. It?s a chrysalis-for-two. God is in the soup, making the worm into the wonder, working the deep mysteries that we?ll never understand, the magic that can only be done in the dark. And He takes His time because that?s the only way we can come to live free. The cocoon ? the painful, soul-melting waiting ? is a gift.
So those are my thoughts. You can take them or leave them. I love you all so dearly.
Being changed,
Virgil
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