Glass-Winged Butterfly

Proverbs 27:19: As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects a man.


Colors capture our attention. Bright colors like yellows and reds seem to clamor loudest for consideration. Often times red can be a warning color in nature, signaling poison, a bitter taste, or conversely a bright invitation to pollinate to help carry on a plant’s life cycle. Now, greens are amazing. There are endless shades of green just in my back yard, yielding depth and texture that can only be truly treasured if you are standing actually in the yard and purposely noticing the dimensions of their pallet. Blue is like that too. Water and sky have so many shades and hues that I don’t think anyone could possibly dream up that many names for blue, although many have tried (like Benjamin Moore who named a lovely dark colored blue simply, ‘Stunning 826’).

I think people can be a bit like color. Sometimes we meet colorful people in our lives who brush in and out like a well-dipped red paintbrush adding laughter, brilliance, or even poison and leaving us changed. Other people are here to stay and their shades of green, gray or brown can be muted and lovely adding such a dimension to our lives that we could scarcely breathe without them.

Today I saw a picture of glass-winged butterfly from Panama and it is so beautiful, I cannot stop thinking of it. Its wings were iridescent, reflecting the colors of whatever it was near, and magnifying the beauty of whatever it rested on. Oh, to be like the glass-winged butterfly, reflecting the beauty I see around me, and magnifying the beauty of others who are near! So often, I will only reflect my own dark heart, brooding and worrying so much that I am missing the beauty and potential that I am actually resting on, and the words of wisdom God has prepared in other’s, will pass on by without me knowing.

It would seem that glass-winged type people are the quiet people in our lives, whose gentle spirit softly bring out the best in us, their humble strength receding to let others boisterously jangle their needed colors. However, the world would be a bit dull if we were all like the glass-winged butterfly. There would be no colors to reflect or emphasize, and so much passion, as well as the flushing lessons from angst might be lost. 

Its not my nature to be glass-winged (at least the positive elements of it). I am far more colorful than even I can handle at times! I am thankful that God works with me daily in refining my colors and helping me along in my little piece of earth.

Mystery Dinner Guest

Critter-food Carnage of the Rose Bush Kind

Psalm 103:1 Praise the Lord O my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name.

Today the pastor was teaching about being thankful and remembering to thank God throughout the day. Today, however, was the day my Betty Boop rose was mowed down to a nub. While the pastor talked about mindful thankfulness, I sat there discouraged and most decidedly NOT thankful. My soul, my inmost being, the area where everything in me is sifted, examined, refined and processed, was in a frump and could not for the life of me come up with something about this situation in which to praise God. Not only had Betty Boop nearly met her demise, but the Queen of Sweden, Moondance and a bit of Dream Come True, had all been similarly terrorized.

It had went down like this…I woke up Friday morning and looked out my front window and my eyes moved lovingly from left to right down my 25 foot-long planter that housed eight of my 10 rose bushes along with five dahlias fresh from the earth. However, when my eyes rested on the last three bushes, my brain was grappling to understand what I was seeing. To the right of each bush were a pile of branches and rosebuds. What? What am I seeing? Today is yard day, but the sun had just come out and the front yard mowing crew were not due for a couple of hours. Beside, all they ever did was mow the front yard, blow the cuttings off the driveway and leave. Who would trim my roses when they were just beginning to bloom? I ran outside and saw that the branches had all been cut in neat 45-degree angles and placed respectfully to the right side of each bush. I examined all the other bushes, than went back to the house to grab my camera and take pictures of the butchery.
After I showered and dressed, I went back out. The yard crew had now left having completed their usual work. My neighbor was outside washing her motor home and I told her about my roses. She told me that some of her dianthus had been destroyed in the same manner. She came and looked at my roses and commiserated with me, and told me she would put a beat out on the block to see if anyone had any ideas what could have happened.

Later that day, my neighbor came to my door clearly shaken and told me she had solved the mystery. She and her sister had just returned from a vacation at the Columbia River Gorge and after washing their huge motor home, they returned it to the storage unit. Now you must know this, my neighbor and her sister are two of the most organized and clean people I have ever known. Besides having the cleanest home and garage in the history of the world, they are also the ones who host and lead our neighborhood’s emergency preparedness meetings twice a year and have our block so organized we should be sent to assist capping BP’s spewing oil leak and cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico. I know we could have it completed within a week, as well as creating a sanctuary for wildlife affected by the oil.

My neighbor said that as she was placing her customary mothballs throughout the motor home, including the engine to deter any potential critter activity, when what should she find? A female rat sitting in a bed made of rosebuds. Mrs. Rat was huge and was not in the least bit interested in finding another spot to repose, no matter how hard my neighbor tried with her broomstick. While she was still trying the relocation effort, her sister opened up another flap on the side of the trailer and found Mr. Rat. The rat couple was in no hurry to leave and my poor neighbors spent a great deal of time insisting that they did. After successfully getting them out of the trailer, they returned with traps, hoping they would not have to dispose of anything in them. By the way, the fanciest hotel I have ever walked inside was the Princeville Hotel in Kauai. My neighbor’s trailer has to be the Princeville Hotel of all trailers. The insult of having rats in it, must have sent chills throughout my poor neighbors bones, she left my porch muttering repeatedly about needing a drink.

I went to bed a bit unnerved to think of my beautiful roses being accosted my two highbrow rats who only wanted to see the country sitting on the youthful blush of Betty Boop and Queen of Sweden rosebuds. However, I did rest well knowing that the two varmints were far away and all my roses were going to grow back strong and beautiful once more… but this was not to be.

This morning, Sunday, I woke up to find more carnage. Betty Boop now has two short branches remaining, and the earlier affected rosebushes were assaulted once more. The question now remains, do Mr. and Mrs. Rat have friends and relations as highbrow as they? Are there rabbits that are teething on my roses and practicing their sharp cuts without needing to consume any in the process? Are there deer that help by standing guard during the raid? I am tempted to sleep in my husband’s car tonight to solve this senseless crime and then trap or bait accordingly.

Now about this praising thing…I will praise God for my roses and I think the critters he made are just awesome, but I’m still working on the thankfulness angle for losing my rosebushes and worried what might go on in my rose garden tonight. “Praise the Lord O my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name.” I will because God tells me to and since He is my creator, He knows best. Thank you God, Amen.