Magic Worms
Magic: 2 any mysterious, seemingly inexplicable, or extraordinary power or quality (Webster’s New World Collegiate Dictionary, fourth edition)
A few weeks ago I found some magic worms (some might call them “caterpillars”) while pulling carrots in my garden. They bore a resemblance to monarch caterpillars so I had my suspicions that they might transform into something pretty. So naturally I put them in a jar. After a few days they zipped themselves up into bright green, pointy sleeping bags. Over the next 10 days or so, the sleeping bags turned brownish-green, then brown, then nearly black. We wished we had an x-ray to get a glimpse as to what those little worms were doing during that time! Then one day, delicate, iridescent-black and blue wings were fluttering in the jar. The caterpillars had completely disappeared. In their place were Black Swallowtail Butterflies.
You may say, what’s so magic about that? There are thousands of butterflies and moths in any typical midwestern yard this time of year. But just because something is common, doesn’t mean it’s not extraordinary.
I asked the internet, “what happens inside a butterfly’s cocoon?” I learned that inside it’s chrysalis, a caterpillar dissolves into a soup. The soup contains chunks that are the beginnings of eyes, wings, etc. Gradually the soup rebuilds around the little chunks into the structure of a butterfly.
(For the scientific explanation, see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/).
Isn’t the development of life fascinating? Whether it’s a baby in the womb or a caterpillar reforming into a butterfly, we humans can define the stages but struggle to explain how it actually happens.
Lately I’ve been reading the book of Job. My favorite chapters are 38-41 where God asks Job a series of rhetorical questions about the birth of the universe, and if Job (or any of us) has the ability to govern it or to shape the lives of its amazing creatures.
Our human understanding only goes so far in truly understanding the magic of the universe. It is wild and majestic beyond what our brains can comprehend. But God knows. He laid the foundations of the earth. He sends forth lightning. He created and understands the lion, the mustang, and the hawk. He also created the caterpillars that transform into butterflies.
When more clowns keep jumping out of the clown car of humanity (as they are right now), the metamorphosis of a butterfly reminds me that the good and just Creator of the Universe knows all and governs all. As Job says to God in 42:2, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”