Be A Butterfly

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For the most part, I’m gentle. I like to call myself a "reserved radical." I spread knowledge. I try to keep up with big things going on, but I recognize everything is not my lane. I’m really just a citizen who likes to inspire people to do their part. Quite a few times, however, I have had to sign my name behind “good trouble” and stand on it. Conflict is inevitable and no matter how good a person you think you are, good people are always capable of doing bad things. Because of our human nature, we are bound to make mistakes eventually. The problem arises when we think we’re so great that we believe we’re far removed from doing bad. That’s dangerous. If you can never sit with any mistake you make, you run the heightened risk of bleeding onto people who never cut you. You run the risk of creating wounds and never knowing it.

If we can accept that good people do bad things, then sometimes we have to challenge the bad being done. It takes courage to push back because there is rarely a crowd standing behind you. It goes further than courage, though. After doing your part, you have to then make peace with walking away in the event you are still met with strife. This is the hardest part.

What happens when you never wanted to walk away, but things as is are not working either?

I think the reason I can deeply empathize when injustice occurs is because I have many times been that individual on the receiving end or somehow caught up in the mix. I know all too well what it’s like to be abandoned, misunderstood, forgotten, & accused. If you’ve ever survived the weight of rumors and scandal, you would know too well what that loneliness feels like. Even if you reason in your mind to never return to the places or people that originally hurt you, you still have to process the feeling of being displaced. When you come to terms with how you deserve better, even the people that so willingly gave you less are seen in a new light.

These days there is much talk about activism but very little action to meet people where they are. People honestly like to be far removed from the situations that they have empathy towards in speech. For example, think of mental health. More people speak on the subject than would actually sit with someone having a crisis. I’m not just assuming, I know it and I’ve seen it happen. The times I see people crying out for help and/or speaking up against bad systems that aggravate these crises, more often than not people on the outside pick apart the tone and manner in which the person speaks out with than getting to the root of the original offense. If we aren’t willing to correct the people and systems that harm, we can’t police the reactions to those harms. If you break my arm, you can’t control how loud I scream, ESPECIALLY if you’re not a part of my healing by getting me the help I need.

Many things that are inconvenient, ugly, desolate, etc. we shy away from and don’t like to be associated with. That’s the real, raw, and uncut truth. Victims are often isolated, ostracized, and their reputations torn apart until the facts come out. Rarely are people exonerated in front of all parties. More often than not, they have to pick up the pieces and just move on.

I’ve had to pick up the pieces several times in my own life. There are so many stories that I’ve left untold, so many situations I just had to reason in my heart and find the strength to forgive, so many connections severed. I’m exhausted from feeling like a nomad. In a place where social cliques and sometimes literal gangs thrive, to be your own person with your own mind is a threat. To seek order and positive change is sometimes shunned.

I’d like to think that I’m your friendly hope dealer from my small corner of the internet but even for me, it’s hard to find the silver lining this week. So much has happened:

• being called out by my name on the internet (I semi-caused it but it wasn’t warranted)

• family health issues, both in the home and with extended family

• being caught in the middle of chaos

• even death in the family

I am working double-time mentally to process it all, respond from a better place than I would’ve used to, and maintain sanity. Overall, I can say I’m proud of myself, but drained and depleted is an understatement for how I feel. I told my therapist friend that mentally I have the tools to overcome this, I’m just tired of facing situations that require those tools. Even now as I just cycle through in my mind all the things that have come up this week, I’m on the verge of tears. For me personally, people tend to mistake my capability and capacity.

Just because I made it through this week, doesn’t mean I should have had to….

I find myself in a season where I’m having to shunt in all my resources. For years I’ve had a high outflow of time, money, and even concern. Concern, or care, can be a powerful drug. Many times we overdo things and overstay our welcome because we care too much. That’s just it. There’s no clout that we are trying to chase. We want to see things better than they are and when we care, we feel obligated to change what we can. The problem occurs when we care more than the parties that are being affected or care more than the people who are supposed to care. You can’t want to save people or go against any system that wants to be in the predicament it’s in. You will harm yourself that way and may even put a target on your back.

I’ve learned through life that God doesn’t always solve problems in the way that we wish. Sometimes the best solution is to disconnect from all unnecessary plug-ins and save yourself. When you’re mid-crisis, say for example you’re riding out a storm and power is limited, you run only what you need to run and save the rest of your energy.

Even in gardening, every day won’t be a day for pruning, or fertilizer, or harvesting. Some days you just need to survive.

If you’ve ever seen the Proud Family movie where the shy and awkward character Zoey is suddenly thrown into a dance battle, you’ll notice her and her friends trying to encourage her by repeating “be a butterfly, be a butterfly.”

Watch here:

I do not own rights to this video.

It’s a silly scene but as I wrote this over a few days I just kept hearing that phrase. I was even visited by this Hackberry Emperor Butterfly over the weekend.

📸: Asterocampa celtis puddling on my index finger. Male butterflies “puddle” in mud, gravel, decaying matter, sweat, etc. to get the nutrients needed to make sperm. He stayed for a few minutes then left and never returned.

I’ve never seen a butterfly linger in a place that cannot sustain them. They will linger where food (flowers) and resources are at for a short time, but eventually they always fly away and seek newness. They know the importance of following the seasons and availability of food. Not all butterfly species migrate over long distances like the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) does, but they will at least move around to some degree. They trust their senses (they can see color and detect certain chemical compounds) to bring them to their next destination. They have no idea for certain that the next place has anything, but they have the faith in themselves to find somewhere that is suitable.

“Consider how the wildflowers grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. If that’s how God clothes the grass, which is in the field today and is thrown into the furnace tomorrow, how much more will he do for you — you of little faith? Don’t strive for what you should eat and what you should drink, and don’t be anxious.” -‭‭Luke‬ ‭12‬:‭27‬-‭29‬ ‭CSB‬‬

I’m in a season of need. I’ve served. Now I also need to be served, and for many people that is inconvenient. Because I am capable of handling my own (even if through faking it ‘til I make it, burnout, or unhealthily hustling) many people assume that I can sustain that capacity, and I cannot. I think the reason I’m so understanding of people’s needs is because quite often mine are misunderstood or ignored. Because I’m a woman of many talents, oftentimes I can finesse to get by, but who wants to live a life like that? Who WANTS to live spread thin all the time? We all deserve a better quality of life than that.

When God gives us gifts, I believe they are for more than just helping others. He gives us the gifts to enjoy and make use of too. Imagine being blessed with carpentry skills and never building yourself a house but everyone in your neighborhood is living great by the work of your hands. It sounds noble, but your home matters too. You cannot love others like you love yourself without first loving yourself. You set that tone. It would be ludicrous to sleep in a shelter while building a whole neighborhood a home. At some point constantly pouring out leads to a deficit within and you suffer.

From me to you, stop this.

It doesn’t matter who understands it, because some won’t. For us young people, especially, some people equate suffering with a rite of passage. The goal is to make life easier on the next generation, not harder.

In this season when I express my needs, no matter how inconvenient, when I’m met with pushback I think, “but Jesus would have done it for me.” I know it’s a tall order to expect everyone to be like Jesus but when it comes to having standards for people who say they love me, that is now the goalpost. You have to meet me somewhere. Being in community and relationship with me requires something; it’s no longer a free ride at my expense.

“What do you think? If someone has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, won’t he leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go and search for the stray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over that sheep more than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. In the same way, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones perish.” -Matthew‬ ‭18‬:‭12‬-‭14‬ ‭CSB‬‬

In this season when somewhere cannot sustain me any longer, like Zoey, I “become the butterfly” and I find where the resources are. Sometimes migrating with the changing seasons is the best thing for you. Trust God and your discernment to settle in the right place next. Know when the season is up. Be open to change. Be a butterfly!!

This past week I celebrated #PollinatorWeek

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