Caterpillar Corrections

Don't tell a caterpillar she's just a worm, she may believe you.  She may think, perhaps that's something I never knew.  Maybe I've been blinded to this fact all of my years and I'm just now seeing the truth.  However, that is not the case, caterpillars are caterpillars just as a rose is a rose is a rose.  To take it a step further, caterpillars are butterflies in process.  Would you agree that it is more effective to refer to a caterpillar as a butterfly than it is to call her just another slug?

Why are caterpillars seen as so much less of a nuisance than slugs or other slimy creatures?  Is it because we know that they haven't met their full potential yet?  Perhaps when we look at the strange jumble of colors in a caterpillar we begin to marvel at the wings it is hiding within herself.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if we started seeing our sisters and brothers this way? Instead of throwing confining words and simple terms around to describe each other, we saw the potential for colorful flight in everyone.  Instead of seeking to put the slimy slugs of our society in jails, prisons, and facilities out of site, we learned to embrace them as our own.  Yes, people do bad things, but the world cannot be divided into good people and bad people.  If we say that sometimes good people do bad things, wouldn't that mean that sometimes bad people do good things, which leads to the assumption that no one is completely good or bad?

So instead of pointing out the differences in others, let's learn to listen to each other's stories.  In a society that is heavily driven by morals (whether we care to admit it or not), it does us no good to push people to the sidelines to make room for ourselves.  When we do that, we may be attempting to make invisible a problem that has only been painted over.  We cannot expect selfishness and greed to save us.  What does it say about the world we live in when we hasten to punish the violent offender and shortly thereafter lose all hope in him?  We say that one must pay the price if he does the crime, however we are not willing to accept collective responsibility for our brother's rehabilitation.  He has to prove that he has changed or at least show that he is willing to change to receive our acceptance, we tell each other.  However, we take no responsibility for helping our brother begin to change.  We lock him up, treat him poorly, and tell him either you're unchangeable or you've got to figure it out yourself.  No wonder he has lost hope.

However, young caterpillar, I have faith in you.  You can change.  You can be a butterfly one day.  I know you have some colorful wings hiding inside you.  Sure there are slimy bits too, but I'll be honest with you, I've got some things in me that I'd be better without.  I make mistakes and I even do some things intentionally which are blatantly wrong.  I'm not a complete butterfly, though I'm not all slug either.  Please, promise me you won't poor salt on me just to alleviate your discomfort and I will work with you to help you find your wings.