Chrysalis Time

Last fall, I spoke to youth about what living a resurrection life would look like. I used the chrysalis stage of the caterpillar/butterfly’s life as the metaphor to frame the conversation around the kind of spiritual initiation that we must undergo in order to see ourselves, the church and societal systems transformed. As a disciple of Christ, the language that I use is resurrection. When we embody a ‘resurrection life’ we cultivate things like repentance, release, regeneration, and reconciliation. All of which produces an anxiety as they break with the norms of our culture. That’s what it feels when you’re faced with the prospect of entering a cocoon… or having to stay at home… or practice social distancing.

The covid19 crisis appears to be initiating a great ‘slowing’ in our lives. For many of us, this is unprecedented. It is as though humanity is being asked to enter a cocoon phase where the mysterious and magical process of chrysalis is beginning to take shape.

And they are affecting us relationally, environmentally and spiritually. 

To resist this process, or to simply reform it, will only continue to put us on a path towards destruction. Resurrection and chrysalis mean that the old way of being will die so that something new will emerge. The delivery systems that got us to this point most likely will no longer work if we are to emerge from this time. In America that’s things like colonial mindset, systems of oppression, capitalism and nationalism. The shadow form of resurrection is regression.

So as we are feeling confined for a time to a space. 
May we tend to the space in a way that allows for more grace.
It is a threshold space and time where something new very well will emerge…
In the waiting, may we be patient and hopeful.