The Butterfly
A man found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he
sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force
its body through the little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had
gotten as far as it could and could go no farther. Then the man decided to
help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily.
Something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shriveled
wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected at any
moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body,
which would contract in time.
Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling around with a swollen body and deformed wings. It was never able
to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that the
restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get
through the small opening of the cocoon are God's way of forcing fluid
from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready
for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If God allowed us to go through all our life without any obstacles, that
would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.
Not only that, we could never fly.
- Unknown
A Special Teacher
Years ago a John Hopkin's professor gave a group of graduate
students this assignment: Go to the slums. Take 200 boys,
between the ages of 12 and 16, and investigate their background
and environment. Then predict their chances for the future.
The students, after consulting social statistics, talking to the boys,
and compiling much data, concluded that 90 percent of the boys
would spend some time in jail.
Twenty-five years later another group of graduate students was
given the job of testing the prediction. They went back to the same
area. Some of the boys - by then men - were still there, a few had
died, some had moved away, but they got in touch with 180 of the
original 200. They found that only four of the group had ever been
sent to jail.
Why was it that these men, who had lived in a breeding place of
crime, had such a surprisingly good record? The researchers were
continually told: "Well, there was a teacher..."
They pressed further, and found that in 75 percent of the cases it
was the same woman. The researchers went to this teacher, now
living in a home for retired teachers. How had she exerted this
remarkable influence over that group of children? Could she give
them any reason why these boys should have remembered her?
"No," she said, "no I really couldn't." And then, thinking back over
the years, she said amusingly, more to herself than to her
questioners: "I loved those boys...."
Bits & Pieces - June 1995
Economics Press
The Journey
One day you finally knew
What you had to do, and began
Though the voices around you
Kept shouting
Their bad advice -
Though the whole house
Began to tremble
And you felt the old tug
At your ankles "Mend my life!"
Each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
Though the wind pried
With its stiff fingers
At the very foundations,
Though their melancholy
Was terrible.
It was already late
Enough, and a wild night,
And the road full of fallen stones.
But little by little,
As you left their voices behind,
The stars began to burn
Through the sheets of clouds,
And there was a new voice,
Which you slowly recognized as your own,
That kept you company
As you strode deeper and deeper
Into the world,
Determined to do
The only thing you could do -
Determined to save
The only life you could save.
By Mary Oliver
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