While we as a people spend billions upon billions upon self-improvement schemes, the root of our problem lies not in our failed and too often truly foolish plans, but in our hearts where we have closed and locked the doors to Him who should own us, if we are ever to become who-He-has-made-us-to–be. Yet, though He knocks at our hearts door, only we can let Him in. In the meantime we so often busy ourselves to the point where we cannot even hear Him knocking. In effect, we deny ourselves His transforming presence simply by remaining inattentive to Him and His appeal to our hearts. We deny ourselves His resurrecting presence by our rushing so from day-to-day until He is neither heard nor welcomed to enter and sit upon His rightful throne. We choose the emptiness of all we foolishly and uselessly do over the fullness of His transcendent power to make us all that He has created us to be.

Metamorphosis Glory

So, here’s the point:
It does not matter
how many
self-improvement
classes nor
painful
surgeries
have been
endured
to remove
all those
ungainly feet
nor how many
times caterpillars
gather in
seminars nor
in study groups
nor in dieting
nor in time
painfully spent
torturing
themselves
on exercise machines—
no, none of this
in the end
will really matter—
for transformation
will only come
as each crawling
worm
surrenders
himself
to that dry
and crusty
cocoon
of saying
a final
good-bye
to all he
has been
before
entering
what seems
a tomb
where he spends
some time
while only
the Maker
Himself
works
until in
metamorphosis
glory
the head,
the body
and the wings
emerge
triumphant
resurrected
to bless
the heavens,
the garden
and the world.

M.S.
August 23, 2021

In The “Cocooning”

It is the “cocooning” that must take place
as the humble and industrious caterpillar
mysteriously dies and is born again
a gloriously free and newly beautiful
butterfly to bless the earth with her
joyful dance upon the breeze from
tree to tree and flower to flower—
it is this eternally sealed crossing over
from one divinely ordained form
into another as our Savior’s own
resurrection power forms antennae
and wings while all those legs and
feet disappear as begins her search
for golden dust and sweetest nectar.

M.S.
August 24, 2021

“Behold I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my my voice and opens the door,
I will come into him and eat with him,
and he with me.”

Revelation 3: 23