Monday Reflections: Metamorphosis

(Photo courtesy of Kathleen Barry, UMNews)

To excel the past, we must not allow ourselves to lose contact with it; on the contrary, we must feel it under our feet because we raised ourselves upon it.
— José Ortega y Gasset

Easter! In the Christian tradition, the season of Easter (or Eastertide) begins on Easter Sunday and runs for 50 days ending on the Sunday after Pentecost. For me, this is good news. For the 40 days of Lent, we have been in self-examination, often finding ways in which we fall short. Eastertide is also filled with self-reflection, but as a celebration of who we have become. Eastertide is a celebration of transformation.

Traditional Easter symbols are symbols of transformation. One of those symbols is the journey of an egg that turns into a larva, then a chrysalis, finishing in a butterfly. The butterfly’s process of transformation can remind us of our journey. There are ugly, difficult, and painful parts of our journey that have been real. We remember them, they influence us, but they do not dictate our present. As Spanish philosopher, Ortega y Gasset, says to move beyond our past, we must feel it under our feet because it is where we come from and where we stand. Yes, the butterfly was once a larva but is now a butterfly. Its story has been completed.

The Easter journey completes our story. It is an invitation to live a new life. In this new life, love is greater than fear; faith and hope are mainstays of our mindset. We experience peace not as the absence of conflict but as the presence of comfort and serenity. In this new life, enemies are loved, strangers are as family, and all of nature (including human beings) is sacred. Our one concern in the new life is to find ways to increase our love so we might love as we have been loved.

This new life also has budgets, Excel sheets, interpersonal conflicts, and a host of difficult decisions to make. This transformed way of seeing the world often comes into conflict with other ways of seeing the world. More often than not, those worldviews oppose the view of the transformed life. But we resist turning back to become a chrysalis, larva, or egg. Instead, we insist. We insist on not giving in to fear. We insist on not giving up love. We insist on not giving in to cynicism. We insist on giving up resentment. We insist on living a transformed life. Easter is an invitation to insist.

On this Eastertide, may you find joy in insisting. May you see the world through the eyes of a transformed life.

Prayer: Source of Life, you have invited me to a transformed life. Give me the strength to insist on leading my life with love, faith, hope, peace, and joy. If I stumble, give me the grace to take your hand so I may not give up. Amen.

Rev. Eduardo Bousson
Senior Manager, Collegiate Ministries
The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry
The United Methodist Church