Metamorphosis 101

Metamorphosis: "Transformation, mobility, flexibility,  flux, alteration, modification, outcome, processing" 

It's wonder-filling when I can marry knowledge to understanding.  I know a lot, derived from numerous venues.  Some are lore-based while provable facts account for others. Trivia-based information ranks high, along with historical facts and science-based concepts.  I even toyed with majoring in philosophy until its panoramic scope discouraged further exploration.  Just a bit too disconcerting for a teen college coed.  

Libraries remain my favored haven where I spent hours devouring information and accumulating data.  I love the smell of books (yes, I smell books) and the lure of captured treasures in the stacks.  All of it produces the synergy of knowledge and understanding. Too, I can recall verses from the Holy Bible, stored in memory from Sunday school classes and worship service messages.

"For this is how much he loved the world---he gave his one and only, unique Son as a gift..." (John 3:16, tPt).

"Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us" (1 John 4:19).

I began to grasp the impact and import of John 3:16 as a preteen participant in Easter Sunday programs.  However, that verse only imposed itself in my world within the last decade or so.  The decision to give up a child to be killed seemed unbelievable and unachievable, especially after I had given birth to my two precious daughters.  No way, Jose! No way!  After some time, though, I could understand the verse from the perspective of one who had been taught from a system of education that demanded proof---of everything! 

An unauthenticated theory had to be proved scientifically.  Since I could find none, either in my own experiences or from learned academic sources, I accepted it as "true" because "the Bible tells me so."* (From "Yes, Jesus loves me" childhood song. )  Obviously, I knew very little about spirituality because I'd not been formally or informally introduced to the Holy Spirit.  The Holy What? 

The supplementary study I undertook led me to graphic accounts of The Crucifixion,  Bloody and brutal even beyond my fertile imagination.  Opened, empty tomb.  Grave clothing neatly folded.  I had no answers.  How Jesus could willingly suffer the humiliating death on a cross, I couldn't fathom.  Even, "Not my will but Thine be done"  eluded human motive or reason.

Much, much later in a different city and church, abetted by difficulties experienced in the meantime, I attended worship services where the Pastor taught lessons for life.  Her sermons on the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the Ascension left me speechless (yes, I sometimes am speechless).  That's when I really learned volumes, beginning with the Protestant Holy Sacraments: Baptism and Communion.  The world of the Spirit widened and invited me in to learn. And learn, I did.   

Subsequently, John 4: 19 initiated teachings about Love.  I said,

"Let's talk about love
I wanna know what love is, the love that you feel inside.
I wanna feel what love is not, you just cannot hide
I know you can show me."

Metamorphosis 201 follows.