Caterpillar Soup: What God Does in Disorder

Global pandemic is so much more than sickness. In addition to causing physical suffering, this pandemic is affecting our work, relationships, congregations, families, routines, mental health, economy, education. If we understand God’s goodness only in the form of peace and stability, it’s hard to find him at the moment.

But God does new things in upheaval. 

Take, for example, what God does through upheaval in the life of a butterfly. Inside its cocoon, a caterpillar doesn’t just grow legs and wings, it becomes an entirely new creation. The caterpillar actually digests itself, liquifying into a kind of “soup.” Certain cells survive, turning the “soup” into eyes, wings, antennae and other adult structures.

I’m pretty sure if I were a caterpillar I’d love the idea of becoming a butterfly. But the idea of dissolving into soup first? Maybe not so much.

Richard Rohr describes the process of transformation as order, disorder, reorder. We’d like to go straight from order to reorder (or maybe just stay forever in order). But to join in the work of transformation, we’ll need to grow in our capacity for disorder. It means trusting there’s something after disorder. And to join Jesus’ work of life, death and resurrection, we’ll need to grow in our capacity for things that feel like death, trusting death is not the end of the story.

In every way we’re feeling the disorder, it’s okay to grieve, to be frustrated and overwhelmed.

At the same time, how can we keep our imaginations open, even in pain and discomfort, for what God is making out of the “caterpillar soup” that is our lives, homes, churches, world?  We’ve been longing and asking for change. What if God is doing something new in and around us that’s beyond our imagination?