4/20/14 Rev. David McArthur
Becoming The Butterfly
“I was a pathetic wreck at every level.” Mike’s once successful career was in shambles, so too his relationships. He was despondent. He asked what many of us have asked, “Why me?” But he went further and also asked, “Who is this person I am meant to be?” He was aware he didn’t look anything like what he began to see. So he asked, “How can I be of service to You?” And he was grateful for the qualities that he now desired in his heart. Since, as minister to a large Unity church in Sacramento, he has become an inspiration for thousands. The shift to live according to what he asked for in his heart is what Easter is all about.
Zhuang Zhou, Taoist philosopher, 4th century B. C., in a dream, flew freely about as a beautiful butterfly. The dream was as real as his life as Zhuang Zhou, and he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Both states are our reality. The butterfly is a symbol of the spiritual self. The freedom of flight, the joy, the magnificence is our reality if we so choose. Mike had made the shift to choose the reality of a spiritual being. “I am a magnificent spiritual being!”
I was in Costa Rica sitting on a river bank captivated by the dense rainforest on the other side of the river, when flashes of a beautiful blue caught my eye. It was a blue morpho butterfly, a wonderful symbol of the free spiritual being we each truly are. In Canada, six year old David was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, and given only one or two more years. The Make a Wish Foundation granted his wish to go to Mexico to see a blue morpho butterfly. After returning home, he went into remission. At the age of 30, he watched on the set as his story was filmed.
Making that healing connection to that in us which is whole is the meaning in Easter, to see the Christ Self within. We have the capacity to see that within ourselves. We each have made that connection one time or another. To go there is a simple thing; it is to experience love.
By fifteen, with 15 arrests, a boy landed in solitary for two weeks. In that “tomb” he discovered his love for his mother. He mentally wrote her many letters, and from there he vowed he would never again do anything to hurt her. And in keeping that promise, he knew he could do anything. Now 33 and a pro in the NBA, Caron Butler made that choice. He made that shift to the highest within him.
Are you open to experience the highest within you? “I am open to the highest within me.” Make that connection within your heart to the love within. Mike made that connection with his spiritual self. Zhuang Zhou did too with the butterfly in his dream. Butler made it to the love in his heart for his mother. And little David made that connection to the blue morpho, the symbol of his spiritual self. You can make that connection in your heart! Bless you!