the Caterpillar and the Cocoon: a Spiritual Formation Primer, part 1
In the time that we have between the womb and the tomb, we either train to reign or we remain a slave to the grave. There is in fact no middle way between these two options. The many different appearances of these outcomes are wildly vast, clearly. However, that all walks of life are reduced to the simplicity of a binary reality should fall within common perception.
What separates one tendency from the other trajectory is the act of tethering ourselves to the heavens. Enter the spiritual disciplines. It is up to us to determine who we will become for all eternity.
Surely that last statement is a hornets’ nest for many a theologian and would-be rabble-rouser. I don’t want to get too far into the flurry of stingers in these debatable issues of God’s foreknowledge, sovereignty, predestination and all the other lovely gravity wells of dialogue. That being said, the passivity of transformation demonstrated in Romans 12 as it relates to the deliberate activity of presenting our bodies is a bit of a mystery. But isn’t all life mysterious in that way?
We have come to some astounding technological abilities in this era of magnified scrutiny. To behold the advent of life beneath the lens of a microscope is a stupendous thing. Through such means we have come to apprehend an astounding amount of the how’s of the world. Nevertheless, mere science has not brought us a single millimeter closer to any of the why’s. For that, we still need the wise.
For instance, returning to Romans 12, we have the cocoon and the butterfly as a wonderful illustration. We are told to *be* transformed by the renewing of our minds (passive) even as we are told to *present* our bodies a living sacrifice (active). Passivity and activity inhabit the same breath (which empowers me against those literary naysayers who demand the utter dissolution of the passive voice – may they be justly reprimanded). The caterpillar works itself indefatigably in weaving the environment of its metamorphosis – and then closes itself up in that place where the magic happens. Activity and passivity are equally integral to the process.
The spiritual disciplines affect us similarly. We engage those activities with diligence, since we are as incapable of transforming ourselves as is the caterpillar. But these activities bring about an atmosphere into our space in which transformation is likely to occur, like the cocoon. All that we must do is spin furiously to create it, enter into it, and then remain there. Therein lies the difference between our activity and passivity, between our diligence and God’s transformation. We present our bodies to the spiritual disciplines; God works the metamorphosis.
Prayer, study, fasting, service, worship, solitude and silence and stillness, meditation, community, giving, simplicity, etc. are all practices still vital and binding and active within the Body, however wounded and divorced within Herself She may be. These are still places where we can and must meet. In truth, I believe that only on the grounds of these common disciplines, doing together what we can, will we come any closer to doing together those things that, at present, we cannot.
It’s a tragedy that Christendom is in dispute over things as sacred as the sacraments. I do not believe our Lord ever intended for the Eucharist to become a point of division between the denominations. It seems to be a long way off yet before we have full communion there. In the meantime, we have the spiritual disciplines. And that will do rather nicely, being transformed together.
