I learned recently that in Mexico, there is a belief that if you hold a new butterfly fresh out of the chrysalis, and whisper a wish to it, that when it takes off for its first flight it will carry your wish secretly through the world.
Maybe it seems silly to think of something as delicate as a butterfly carrying your wish, your hope, your dream, your desire into a big scary world full of winds and rains and creatures that can destroy something as fragile as a butterfly. One swat of a hand, one rainy day, one malicious thought and that butterfly (and your wish) is ended.
But here’s the thing — butterflies are delicate, but they’re also strong. In fact, the longest documented flight for a migrating monarch butterfly is 2,750 miles from New Brunswick, Canada, to Mexico. I don’t know about you, but that’s some impressive distance when you think about those tiny, fragile wings carrying your wish for the world.
For many of us, we have swirling emotions of chaos this time of year — the longer days of darkness, complex grief around holidays with family members gone or disconnected, uncertainty about the nation, sadness at the way time passes in both a “too slow” and “too fast” time warp. And, with the winter days, picturing putting our hope in a brand-new butterfly feels impossible.
But maybe that’s precisely what we need — to place our hope, our wish, our dreams — in something altogether impossible. That when we seem out of possibilities, out of anything feasible, that we are taking something as delicate as a baby butterfly, give her a gentle place on the end of our finger, place our wish into her wings, and watch her fly into the world, carrying our hope with her.
What would you wish? What is your hope? What is your dream? Breathe it into the world and let the winds carry it across miles and miles, across the snow-covered trees and the frozen lakes to a land where all hopes and dreams glow brightly.
The Rev. Meredith Harber serves as the pastor to Christ Lutheran Church, 128 N. Soldotna Ave., Soldotna. Worship is at 10 a.m. on Sundays in person and livestreamed on their Facebook page.
