This past Spring, the Maria College Care of Earth Committee met to discuss initiatives for the coming year that would be centered around the Sisters of Mercy Critical Concern, ‘Care for the Earth.’ This committee, overseen by Dean Victoria L. Battell, Chief Mission Officer, was inspired by an initiative spearheaded by the Mercy Ecospirituality Center called the Mercy Monarch Milkweed Project and shared the project with the committee as an initiative we could participate in during 2020. Read more about this project in the blog post, ‘You are invited to help save the monarch butterfly’, written by Drew Ledoux, Associate Vice President for student Affairs (Mercy Associate).
Of course, this past Spring we were in the middle of this global pandemic, so it was refreshing to meet with the committee monthly to talk about something life-giving, proactive, and positive. As the days, weeks, months passed, and we all stayed out of society—wrapped in our cocoons—I started to ask myself these questions, as many of us did.
- Will life ever go back to what it was before Covid-19? And, if so, how long will it take?
- How can I remain positive when I am feeling so much anxiety about the uncertainty of the present and future?
- What version of myself is going to emerge on the other side of this?
And wouldn’t you know, all of these things so beautifully correlate to the transformation of the monarch butterfly. Let me answer these questions above through that lens.
- Will life ever go back to what it was before Covid-19? And, if so, how long will it take?
No, life will not go back to what it was prior to the pandemic. We can’t un-live this reality. But, we can choose to embrace and trust the process. Time doesn’t stop and transformation is not a singular moment in time, it’s continual, regardless of our circumstances. - How can I remain positive when I am feeling so much anxiety about the uncertainty of the present and future?
There is always a silver lining. As the monarch transforms into a Pupa, and is miraculously turning into a completely different creature in form and function, the cocoon has the most beautiful gold line on the outside of the shell. The gold does not appear on the caterpillar or the butterfly but on the cocoon—a piece that is shed in the process of transformation. Choose to find those thin shreds of hope and remind yourself of them often. - What version of myself is going to emerge on the other side of this?
At the moment I don’t know because I am not there yet. But I am choosing to trust in the process of transformation and remain honest and raw enough with myself to dismiss the ugly in the moment and hope for a better tomorrow.
The new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17b
Please participate in Maria’s upcoming Mercy Week (September 21-28) festivities centered around Care for the Earth!
Meagan Masti
Director of Marketing & Design
Thank you so much for your thoughtful sharing
Submitted by David Hoffman on
Thank you, Meagan, for this thoughtful post. Holding onto hope that something will indeed evolve, and it will be more beautiful than we can imagine! We need this hope, this light, in these times. Thank you!
Submitted by Victoria Battell on