Photo by Kim Smith Designs
Next week I will be taking a group of young people from across Canada on a contemplative walk at Second Marsh in Oshawa. They are the "pilgrims" who are attending what may be the last General Council as we know it for the United Church of Canada.
On Wednesday of this week I drove there to scope out the trails I knew well in another time. The good news is that Lake Ontario hasn't been moved. I was pleased to see that the monarch butterflies were around as well. These marshes and grassy areas along the lake are staging grounds for monarchs in the Fall, before they head southward across the vast lake, but their numbers are diminishing. There was plenty of milkweed in bloom and lots of the butterflies.
I noticed yesterday that Sir David Attenborough, the marvelous nature film-maker and guru of the environmental movement is endorsing a butterfly count in Great Britain. This involves spending 15 minutes counting butterflies and submitting the sightings online. Fortunately this has been a good year for butterflies in Britain despite 40 years of steady decline in populations.
I couldn't recollect any mentions of butterflies in scripture and when I checked there were no references. Through the years preachers have used the caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly metaphor to help us imagine the death and entombment and resurrection of Jesus. But you might have thought that when Jesus said "consider the birds and the flowers" he might have included butterflies.
All I know is that butterflies are exquisite and deserve to be protected as an essential aspect of Creation.
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