Butterfly Borscht and a Jug of Milk

Dan!

Your announcement got me thinking, and

from my point of pew….

Butterfly Borscht and a Jug of Milk

 

 

     A: Until You Get Further Directions... :)
 
      Before we get started, copy and print out the butterfly below.  Then cut it out and insert a stick pin into it.  Set aside until you get further directions at the end of this blog.

 

 

B:  What Could Go Wrong if We Choose to Remember...or Forget?

 OK, just for fun, list all the things that could happen if he forgets to bring home the milk – again.

1.       _________________________________________________________

2.      _________________________________________________________

3.      _________________________________________________________

4.      _________________________________________________________

5.      _________________________________________________________

6.      _________________________________________________________

7.      _________________________________________________________

8.      _________________________________________________________

9.      _________________________________________________________

10.   _________________________________________________________

 


C: Do Our Choices Matter?

OK, now here’s another question.  Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? [1]  Does here change there?  A now change a later?  Or can an inside change an outside?  In other words, how do even the tiniest changes here eventually alter the path of larger events there?  How does the smallest of decisions now change, delay, accelerate, or even prevent larger incidents later?  Do first circumstances inside something domino-down a daisy-chain of events to end up looking very different outside?  

In short, how little does a change, an action, or a decision need to happen before the after-effects brushes up against twin towers, tornadoes, or stone-covered tombs?

 

 

And here’s another question.  Can we really determine how things go?  Can we ever be so smart, so well-organized, so prayed up, or so lucky or unlucky as to control how life ends up?

 

 

D: The Guy Who Put                                          "Small Choices: Random Choices" into an Equation

Dr. Edward Lorenz, an American mathematician, made a wee little mistake that ended up to be a very big, intriguing mistake one day in the lab: he changed just one of a twelve numbers from .506127 to .506, the difference being waaaaaaay less than the diameter of a strand of fine hair!  Perhaps his subconscious thought that thousandths, hundred thousandths, and millionths were so miniscule a number that it wouldn’t matter? 
 OK, I admit it: I flunked Grade 10 math, so maybe that’s what I would have been thinking!

But think of a millionth of something: a millionth of a banana, a millionth of a cup of coffee, a millionth of your favorite pizza.  Draw it here, I dare you:

 

 

It gets pretty small, eh?  So, what’s the big dif?

Dr. Lorenz noticed “the big dif”!   Even though a different number of events all started at exactly the same place, when each had its course (mistakenly and) microscopically altered, each event ultimately spiraled off onto its own course and ended up at a very different place. 

1.   As in three balls starting at the same place on top of a hill, each – with a puff of wind, a drop of rain, or a rut of sludge – ending up in different places at the bottom of the hill;
2.  As in three milkweed pods on a single plant splitting open, sending their tufted seeds into the air, each – with a hurried hiker, a summer storm, and a forest fire – ending up in different areas;
3.  As in a set of triplets given up at birth, each – with a stroke of a fine-line pen, a pressured quick good-bye, and three foreign adoptive parents – ending up never meeting again. 

Small changes, random and unplanned,

set into motion very different results. 

And the small changes are often unplanned, unannounced, and unaccounted for! 

NO FAIR!!!!

Dr. Lorenz called this randomness the Butterfly Effect.  When the numerical data on each course of Dr. Lorenz’s events was plotted onto a line graph, it looked like the one below. Each color represents one event.

[2]

When the data was transformed into a 3-D graph, it looked like this - a cool butterfly-looking model. [3] 

 

 

Take a quick peek also at the YouTube animation of the butterfly effect graph, also known as the Lorenz Attractor. A It'sa computerized model of how three beginnings all 

started at the same point but ended up at very different end-points,

simply because of a random mathematical difference to the millionths!

 

Hence the idea Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil (one small event) impact the tornado in Texas (a huge event)? 

 

E:  The Impact of Jesus' Choices

Mark 9

Jesus, in Mark 9, made small decisions too.  He chose to transfigure himself from the inside out – and later Peter, James, and John would learn what “rising from the dead” would mean.[4]  Jesus gave a demon its marching orders – and later the disciples exorcized devils for themselves.[5]  Jesus cuddled a child – and later the disciples thought better about fighting over who “budged first into line,” a wee bit worried about being dropped off in the middle of the lake with a stone around their necks, two-handed and sharp-eyed with 20/20 vision, sure, but from a room with a view - in hell.[6] 

But Jesus perhaps may not have known then (OK, no splitting theological hairs here on pre-destination or the omniscience of Christ) the impact he would have on

·        the abolishing of infanticide and gladiator debacles in Rome, slavery in the US, and cannibalism in some primitive societies,

·        the education of the poor,

·        the establishing of hospitals, heterosexual, monogamous marriage, and the Red Cross,

·        civil rights for women, children, and African-Americans,

·        the inventions of the calculator, pasteurization, modern chemistry, the three laws of motion, and much more,

·        as well as provision of magnificent works of literature, art, and music by Dante, Chaucer, Donne, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Dickens, Milton, Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, and others, all of whom were professing Christians.[7]

 

   One act of exorcism, one cuddle, one lecture on not budging in, one holding of the hand of a corpse, one defiant act against an oppressive Pharisaical system - and we now gaze at “The Creation of Adam” prints in hospitals that allow African-Americans to drink safe water at a public drinking fountain. 

Who knew?!

 

 

 

F:  The Night My Choices Set My Course

 

       Ambulance sirens and fire truck lights punctured the stillness and darkness of that September night.  The numbness in my head and heart thawed open in the heat of tragedy as I stood there, in the lights, in the mayhem, in the clatter of frantic voices, jaws of life, and crowbars.  I realized right there that my family’s lives - as they were once lived - now laid scattered and shattered like broken shards of glass across concrete.  My husband was dead, I was a widow, my children left fatherless, and my grandchildren cheated. 

               I blamed God, for a moment.  Why?! 

               But then the strongest warning came over me in that blackness and mayhem.  I undeniably realized in that very moment - in the flutter of a butterfly’s wings - that should I dare ask the wrong questions now, should I dare lose what little footing of faith I had in that moment, and should I dare raise a fist or a finger to point, or rail, or challenge, or renounce, the inflooding darkness-of-soul would far surpass the darkness of this night.  My husband was dead, and now was not the time to dance with the devil to the tune of a crisis of faith.  Now was the time to flail on butterfly’s wings to a place I could not know.

               I pulled my grown son into my arms, weirdly quiet and numb with trauma.  I pressed his ear to my mouth and I told him – no, commanded him – “We are going to do this right, hear me?  Let’s do this right!  Promise me!  Promise me, right here!”  Before we were told to leave, before we were told that my husband was dead, we promised each other that if it took us to the very guts of our inside-out-selves, we would survive this, and survive it well.  One butterfly fell from the sky that September eve, but we would be found riding tornadoes for the six-second count.

 

What we choose,

the choices we do have control over,

DO matter!

 

 

 

G:  Do-overs and Choosing Differently

 Take a quick boo of this awesome video I found.  Below are the lyrics.

     
Who would you rather kiss
on the very first date if you had to choose?
How big a bet you'd make
on your very first game if you couldn't lose?
What would you rather wear
on the very first dance with the one you like?
And how would you really sing
on a difficult song with a broken mike?

Small decisions,
life incisions,
big in retrospect
Bracing gently,
consequently,
the butterfly effect.

Where would you rather go
on your very last June that you spent apart?
What would you leave behind
on your very last smile before you depart?
Who would you rather kiss
on your very last chance of another start?
And how would you rise again
on a difficult slope with a broken heart?

Small decisions,
life incisions
big in retrospect.
Scopeless seeding,
always feeding,
the butterfly effect.

 

 

H: Pastor Dan's Choice:                                              It Affects How We Choose

               This past Sunday, Pastor Dan announced he would be resigning next year.  Faces froze.  Breath stopped.  Thoughts swirled.  Twenty years of blood, sweat and tears, of prayer, politics and provision for this church – coming to an end and soon to be memories.  He has made a decision, perhaps several decisions. 

              The trajectory has been set.  We cannot see where the butterfly wings will take him and his family - or us as a church and individuals.  However, guaranteed, the path will be elegant beyond words, for God`s plans – the paths he has ordered for us – are exquisitely stunning!  And although the pulls and pressures, and weights and wills of this world appear random, God is in control, and He has a spectacular trajectory for each one of us!

I: Our Choice:  Know that God's in Control 

 

J:   Choosing the Right Things to Do or Say          Even when You Know It'll Be Tough

             I want to take the butterfly-effect-and-change metaphor one step further. 

The caterpillar knows change is inevitable.  Infinitesimally tiny cells inside the caterpillar, called imaginal cells, contain  DNA codes for wings, legs, antennae, and organs.  The photo to the left is one of the wings. 

They lie dormant, stalled, inside the caterpillar`s tube-like body – until a hormonal switch sends a message coursing through its being: spin a protective chrysalis about yourself and don’t be afraid of what seems to a death-inducing process. 

Inside the hardened pupa case, powerful enzymes begin to liquefy the caterpillar, dissolving its head and spinnerets, muscles, heart and lungs … everything!  This enzyme breaks everything of the caterpillar down into a goopy soup, a borscht of sorts - everything except the imaginal cells which envision, or imagine, the butterfly.  The soup feeds these hungry cells, which then morph into the butterfly. 

The vision of the soaring butterfly was always there, inside the looping, inching caterpillar; it just needed to endure a death-defying transformation.

Pastor Dan made a decision this summer to face change. 
His imaginal cells
- the ones God himself placed inside Pastor Dan's spiritual DNA code -
have been jump-started.  Again.  Change isa-comin'!

Many of you have made decisions like that too. 
Your imaginal cells
- the ones God himself placed inside your spiritual DNA code -
have been jump-started too, with this announcement.
Change is a-comin'!

 

Things will seem to just dissolve away from under us as we face the change.  It may be a big, sloppy, scary pot of soup, bubbling borscht-hot with doubt, uncertainty, mystery, difficulty, misunderstanding, and complexity.

No matter, all our butterflies will rise flutering their wings, their courses set - and what we could not have been imagined - our tomorrows - will emerge from the "chaos." 

 

I made my own scary decisions that fateful September to survive my own death-defying, inner-soup-foaming transformation.  Deep inside of me, I held on with clenching fingernails the image of a good, good God.  I could have decided to make the place where my husband died a curse; instead, I decided to make it a sanctuary, where I came to pray and cry and stand in the Light; no devil would rob me of one square inch of this earth! 

I could have decided to curl up and wither; instead, I decided to stand tall and dance in the dark.

I could have decided to heap ashes on my head, mourn, and pull a heavy coat of heaviness about my shoulders; instead, I decided to put on flowers, joy, and praise.[8]

Because I chose life, I eventually decided to get out of myself and join an online dating site where I met me a Mennonite man of God!  Because I chose him, I decided to leave family, friends, and career in Alberta to marry him and move to BC, to love his mother and father, adore his aunties, and embrace his pastor, Pastor Dan. 

And because of that, I am here in this moment, in this pew, to share with you my tragedy - and the promise that every decision we make matters!  And that those things that seem out of our control are still significant and make a permanent and momentous difference! 

K: Scriptures: Butterfly Borscht for the Soul

           (Don't skip over these Bible verses; they're butterfly borscht for your soul.)

Joshua 1:9
...Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Psalm 71:5
For You are my hope, O Lord GOD;
You are my trust from my youth.

Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. (NIV)

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 19:21
Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.

Romans 8:28
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

 

 

L: The Choice to Transform Beautifully is      Largely Ours

 

Let’s remember this as we join Pastor Dan in the transformation process, that this is not just his journey, but OURS as well!  We are all starting out in the same place: here in the pew, unnerved, unsettled, scared, and lost.  But we can safely know that God has flipped the switch and set into motion an awesome outcome for each one of us, for the church, and for Pastor Dan. 

 

God can do anything, you know

—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request

in your wildest dreams!

He does it not by pushing us around but by

working within us,

by his Spirit deeply and gently within us.[9]

 

M: The Call to Stand by "Dan Our Man" -           and our Church

 

 

 I am calling us to decide to stand by Pastor Dan  -  and the church and ultimately ourselves -  by participating in the upcoming transformational process, which at times might just feel like a goopy butterfly-borscht of sorts. 

Ephesians 4:19-21

Let’s take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into our conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in us.

Colossians 3:9-11
Let`s put on a new nature, and be renewed as we learn to know our Creator and become like him.

 

  2 Corinthians 4:15-17

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.  

 

 

ü John 17:20 - Let’s become one heart and mind – just as Jesus and the Father are one – so that those watching might believe in the Father. 

ü Let’s be together, mature in unity, to give the godless world evidence that God sent Christ and loves them in the same way God loves Christ.[10]  

ü Let’s make strong and powerful decisions, the ones we do have control over, that we will be proud to have made in the end – ones that encourage, support, edify, validate, and show God.

ü  Let’s roll with the consequences - even those we have no control over - and trust God, for it’s impossible for us humans to measure and control everything 100%.  So let’s get over it, already.  Be OK with this – and trust, think, expect, believe, wait, decide ….

 

Your life and how you live it, what you do with it – and the decisions you make or just roll with –

matters forever!

 

 

How we stand together with Pastor Dan matters!

 

The decisions we make to

smile at him,

support him,

honour him,

pray with him…

and to build up and not tear down,
and to speak life into Change and not curses,
and to love each other even if we don't know what's going on.

 

All of this will most certainly determine how
stunningly impressive and significant our tomorrows, as Fraserview Church, will be!

 

So please wear your butterfly pin this Sunday

as a show of support for not only Pastor Dan but for us

as we make our way through this God-inspired change.

 

 

N: What Could Go Wrong if We Choose to Remember...or Forget?

Because, look it.  If you expected just a jug of milk when he came in the front door, then take a look at this.  Expand to full size to get the full jist of it.   
 

 

And that`s how I see it, from my point of pew.

 

 Oh, and conversation matters to me, so blog your comments with me.

 

 

---

[1] http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ButterflyCurve.html

[2] http://www.gmilburn.ca/2011/01/06/lorenz-and-the-butterfly-effect/

[3] http://www.viewsfromscience.com/documents/webpages/chaos_p3.html

[4] Mark 9:9-10 (The Message)

[5] Mark 16:17 (The Message)

[6] Mark 9:42-48 (The Message)

[7] http://www.faithfacts.org/christ-and-the-culture/the-impact-of-christianity

[8] Isaiah 61:3

[9] Ephesians 3:20

[10] John 17:20