The Lesson of the Butterfly

One day a small opening appeared in a cocoon, a man sat and watched the butterfly for several hours while it tried to move its body through the small hole. After some time, it seemed that the butterfly had ceased making any progress. It appeared to have done all it could and still had not managed to enlarge the hole.

The man decided to help the butterfly; he grabbed a pair of scissors and cut open the cocoon.  The butterfly was able to get out easily. Its body was small and withered, and its wings were wrinkled. The man continued to watch it, hoping that at some point the wings would open and stretch to support the body, and that it would become tough. None of this happened! On the contrary, the butterfly spent the rest of its short life crawling around with a shrivelled and shrunken body and wings and was never able to fly.

Helping does not always help
The man, in his kindness and desire to help, did not realize that the tight cocoon and the effort required for the butterfly to pass through the small opening, was the strategic plan that God had created so that the fluid in the butterfly's body could be pumped to its wings, thus enabling it to fly once it had freed itself from the cocoon.

There is help and then there is help... We should all be good Samaritans, but we should not replace others; that would be patronizing. We can help to solve other people's problems, but only they can solve them. We can lead a horse to water, but we cannot make it drink... Forcing an adult to do good is always bad... Positive help is giving a rod and teaching how to fish, and not giving a fish. Giving a fish creates dependency and makes the ones helped lazy.

Today's psychotherapy follows the principle of non-directiveness, which is a derivative of the old Socratic maieutics; the psychotherapist does not ask questions out of curiosity or to get to know the client, but to help the client to get to know himself and to find within himself the solution to his own problems, the motivation and willpower for change.

Babies of Africa and babies of Europe
In the field of education, Freud discovered that human maturity occurs when the pleasure principle is abandoned and the reality principle is embraced; or as Christ would say, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). Children in Africa makes this transition much earlier than children in Europe.

In Europe, when a baby cries, he is immediately attended to, which is why many babies do not even cry anymore, all they have to do is pout to get what they want, and what else could this be but a threat, an ultimatum? The baby creates the belief that it is enough to cry for things to magically appear, settling into the pleasure principle. Unlike the overprotected European babies, the African babies cry and cry and are not attended to, so they soon get used to the harsh reality; if they feel cold, hungry, thirsty or wet, they put up with it, so they soon wake up to a world without Santa Claus and fairy godmothers and mature sooner.

Many parents, who went through difficulties when they were children, say that they do not want their children to go through what they went through; as a result, they are paternalistic and coddle their children thinking that they are helping them; they forget that they are what they are today precisely because they went through these very same difficulties and prevailed.

The cross is against the law of minimum effort
Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things to enter his glory? Jesus questioned the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:26). Everything good in life has a price, either money, work, effort or all three at the same time.

The law of minimum effort has motivated the technological and scientific advances in all material aspects of human life, but this does not apply to the psychic, ethical and spiritual aspects; in these realms, the law of maximum effort to get the greatest benefit continues to prevail; "Sorrow well milked is the cream of joy", say the pastors of Serra da Estrela. A victory is not celebrated without a battle, and the tougher the battle, the more joyful the victory celebration will be.

There is no resurrection without death. Christ could not have entered his glory without leaving this world, where he became flesh; the exit would not have been smooth because the life was not smooth. Christ paid the price for his freedom and non-submission to the political, economic, and religious power; he paid the price for his boldness in confronting and denouncing the injustices of the social and religious establishment of his time.

Great challenges make great men
"The situation makes the thief", say the people, is also valid in a positive sense. It is the situations, the great challenges, that make heroes out of those driven by challenging ideas, and cowards, and opportunists, out of those driven by selfish and petty interests.

It was the enslavement of God's people in Egypt that created Moses; it was the hemlock that praised Socrates and unearthed him from the oblivion of history; it was the Trojan war that created the myth of Achilles; it was the Second World War that created Winston Churchill; it was India's independence that created Gandhi, it was apartheid in South Africa that created Nelson Mandela. It is not the man that makes the situation, it is the situation that makes the man.

I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me strong
I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve
I asked for prosperity and God gave me intelligence and strength to work
I asked for courage and God gave me danger to overcome
I asked for love and God gave me troubled people to love
I asked for favours and God gave me opportunities
I received nothing I wanted
But I received everything I needed. Author Unknown

Live life without fear, face all the obstacles that come your way because "God gives the cold according to the clothes"; have faith, God will not allow you to be tested beyond your strength because "there is no evil from which good does not come".

Conclusion – Other than patronizing people by trying to solve their problems, help them to help themselves. Giving a fishing rod emancipates and empowers, giving a fish weakens the person and creates dependency.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC