Emergence

Emergence
Tic, tic, tic, tap.
Tic, tic, tic, tap, crunch.
Blink. Blink.
Hello?
Anybody out there?
Is it safe?
Is it safe to come out,
to quit this place of safety,
of comfort,
to step outside
and into the light?
Is it safe to come out,
to unfurl my wings
and wait a moment
until the sun hardens them?
Is it safe, my brother,
to join you ‘mongst the flowers?
Is it safe, my sister,
to sip this sweet nectar?
Come, come! they call me.
Come?
Yes, yes, come!
Tic, tic, tic, tap.
Tic, tic, tic, tap, crunch.
Blink. Blink.
I come.

Huh. That’s the first bit of poetry I’ve written in a long while. Let me know what you think of it.

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.”
- Richard Buckminster Fuller

“I embrace emerging experience.
I participate in discovery.
I am a butterfly.
I am not a butterfly collector.
I want the experience of the butterfly.”
- William Stafford

So what’s up with the butterflies? Love, growth, discovery, joy, emergence. And I have a wonderfully perceptive and encouraging boyfriend. Sometimes (actually, many times) he asks tough soul-searching sorts of questions in an effort to get to know me better. The real me, not the me I hide behind. His latest was actually the easiest to answer: What makes you feel loved? Basically, what is it in others’ words and actions that makes me feel like they love me? And here was my answer: It’s being accepted for who I am. It’s knowing that I can say what’s on my mind without being judged or laughed at. It’s being able to laugh with someone. It’s messing up and still they accept me. It’s having someone care how I feel and not laughing at my fears. Well, my response opened, not a door, but a huge gateway (think Black Gate sized). We’ve been discussing it via e-mail, and one of the things he said really struck me : If I may make an analogy: the butterfly doesn’t want to come out of its cocoon. You’ve been in the world as a caterpillar, and you felt somewhat at peace with that. But you’re destined for bigger things, and you’re more beautiful and complex than anyone would judge by looking at you. The vibrant color would dazzle the eyes of many, and you’re terrified of showing it, because its different, and you want to be accepted, regardless of your feelings towards popularity on the whole. I admit, that made me cry. I struggle with who I am. I struggle with what God’s doing in my life, because I can’t see what’s going on. I’m self-depreciating. So to see me described through those terms was a revelation in and of itself. It was like catching the briefest glimpse of myself through his eyes, and it blew me away. That someone, outside of God and my family, loves me that much to be able to see me that way…. amazing. What’s more, I know it is only a tiny reflection, a tiny glimpse, of God’s love for me. I know truly that God is able to “do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20). Like get this butterfly out of her cocoon.