Emergence—
an exploration of the essence of true transformation…
I believe this is a season of emergence in the body of Christ. Things God has embedded deep within us from the beginning of time will be bursting forth now…with very little effort from us. The Gardener has been planting:for us there has struggle and hardship in the cultivation process at times. There is a great harvest coming now.
Emergence—
Was it just me or were there butterflies everywhere last August? I had never noticed that of August before. It felt like I saw one just about every hour or so.
“Butterflies represent transformation,” they say. An obvious symbol if you take a look at their life cycle.
Doing a bit of toiling around the word “transformation” here… And a quick realization follows: that somehow this word has been hijacked to mean something closer to “product-oriented change, effortful evolution, or breaking into a more advanced or earned status.” None of those thoughts are bad or wrong–good ol’ production has its place.
In seeking to uncover a more true meaning of transformation, in light of a paradigm in which all life is being redeemed, the word that occurs to me is more of an “emerging.”
The caterpillar didn’t all the sudden decide to fix itself into something more beautiful. He didn’t toil away becoming a better version of himself. He didn’t plot, plan or craze to transform. He didn’t read self-help books. He didn’t worry his way into a tizzy of wings. He didn’t earn it in prayer. In fact, he didn't transform really at all–he emerged into what he was always to become. It was mapped right into his little body all along. Did he struggle? Hard to say. Did he hope? Did he “let go” of something to open his hands to those new wings? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps he had some agency–we don’t know exactly how it all worked for him but we know it happened. We may see his butterfly state as “better” or “more beautiful.” I mean, he can fly after all now! But who’s to say, in the flurry of flight, he might not actually wish to be all curled up, crawling, or cocooned safe inside again?
These musings around anthropomorphism (putting human qualities upon these butterfilies of ours) only brings an overwhelm of assumption, judgment and evaluative pride to my mind, realizing really that we know very little of this little guy’s actual experience of his, namely “transformational process.” Who or what goes into it? The DNA, the plan, the process is utterly complex. Perhaps transformation is a concept that has been just as muddled as these anthropomorphic musings.
When thinking of the word, “emerging,” progress does come to mind, but the kind that is the “natural unfolding of the inevitable” type. Images are called to mind of the refining of gold; the cleaning of a mirror; the revealing from behind a mask–exposing something that was there all along. The drawing open of the curtain at the start of a show: an analogy ripe with acknowledgement of all the original intent, preparation, and intelligent design that went into the process for such a moment as this. The pressure is off the caterpillar. The story points immediately to all the “work” that has gone into the emergence from some other, far moreDelicate Hand. This idea of emerging has an honor not only of the new, better, or best, but perhaps more preeminently of the deep struggle to reveal what has always been under the surface–finally able to be celebrated as it truly is and was ever meant to be.
