Adapted from “The Elephant Talks To God” ~ Dale Estey

“God, can I ask you a question?”

“Everyone else does,” said God. “What have you got for me this time?”

“It’s about the butterflies.”

“Yes?”

“How come they live for just a season?” The elephant looked down to the ground, then back to the cloud. “They’re so beautiful and so light . . . and friendly. And they do a great job of taking pollen everywhere and helping the flowers and plants. Why, they’re even making sure there is going to be food for me, isn’t that right?”

That’s right,” answered the cloud. “From the butterfly to you with a few extra stages thrown in.”

“So why do they die so soon?”

“Butterflies don’t live a season,” said God. “They live a life.”

“But they’re gone when . . .”

“They’re gone when it’s their time,” answered the cloud. “To a butterfly the season is their life. They expect nothing more and fulfill their existence. To the trees, your life is brief.”

“You mean the butterfly thinks of its season like I think of my years?”

“Seconds or hours, long shadows or short, it’s all the same kind of time,’ said God. “The butterfly feels he has as long a life as you.”

“Really?” asked the elephant.

“Yes,” said God.

“I’m glad,” said the elephant.

And then God spoke to the elephant, and called him by his name, and filled his heart full of his beloved butterflies, and they soared through his blood, wing tip to wing tip, until he understood the power of their life.