Day 22

Around here, spring is a season of emergence, of an almost riotous daily display of creation in bloom. But this growth isn't like instant pudding , it's tied into deeper, timeless patterns of being and becoming. And to really witness it in a marvelous way requires patience.

In Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis tells a poignant story about refusing to wait on creation, and the damage he did because of his insistence:

"I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the back of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life. The case opened; the butterfly started slowly crawling out, and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath, in vain.

It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of the wings should be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear all crumpled, before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand.

That little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight I have on my conscience. For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm."

The TV show LOST dramatized a version of that story, starring a moth this time instead of a butterfly, and featuring a character who was battling drug addiction. (I also think it's a resonant image of death and rebirth as we enter this Easter weekend.) But the point is the same. Perhaps our greatest addiction is to demand the world conform to our timetable.

As Robert Bly wrote, "Our disasters come from letting nothing live for itself, from the longing we have to pull everything, even friends, into ourselves, and let nothing alone." With perfect straightforwardness, Diana Ross and The Supremes sang, "You Can't Hurry Love."

When do you find yourself most in the midst of creation, not hurrying the love, but learning to care in patience and with presence? Or alternatively, where have you impatiently rushed the process of creation, prematurely bringing forth life before it was ready to be born?