Why the Monarch?

A blog has to start somewhere. This one starts with a memory 

from childhood — one I keep coming back to, and one I 

am expanding much further in my book

 Consider the Monarch, which I am writing now.

Why the monarch? Because it is one of the most resilient

 creatures God made. It seems fragile, and in some ways it is — but its 

endurance is remarkable. Every fall, monarchs leave the far northern reaches 

of North America, as high as Canada, and travel down through the lower 

United States to southern Mexico, where most of them spend the winter. 

The fall flight south is made by a single long-lived generation — 

it is the spring trip back north that takes three or four generations to complete.

As a Christian, I draw much wisdom from the Bible regarding God's 

creation. Scripture often invites us to look closely at the natural world and let

 it teach us. Job says, “Ask the beasts, and they will teach you.” Proverbs t

ells us to consider the ant and learn from her ways. And Jesus pointed to 

the birds, the ravens, the sparrows, the lilies — reminders that God sees what 

others overlook and cares for what the world might call small.

As a child, I did not have the language for survival, or trauma, or longing. 

I only knew what it felt like to search for safety. But the monarch

 gave me a picture I could understand. It taught me that wisdom is 

sometimes carried on fragile wings. It taught me that something delicate 

can still be determined. It taught me that home can live inside you long 

before you ever reach it.

I think we can learn a lot from the monarch butterfly. 

It longs for a home it has never been to — in a real sense, a citizen of Mexico, though it has never resided there. It has an inborn drive to reach its final home, 

a drive that consumes its entire purpose. Nothing will stop the monarch. 

Its sole intent in life is to get home. It will die trying.

Sometimes we get too attached to this world, as though this is all 

there is and the purpose is to gather as much of it as we can. If we can only 

follow the wisdom of one of God's most fragile creations — if we can only consider the monarch.

Wisdom on wings.