It was Trinity Sunday and in her children’s sermon Mother Amy had just done a solid job of explaining how God can be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all at the same time, just as we can be sibling, athlete, musician, and student all at the same time. She spoke of how God shows up in many faces, many forms, choosing the manner appropriate for the moment and for the one seeing.

The sermon concluded, the service continued, and at the Communion rail I served a little girl in a butterfly costume, complete with gossamer wings. On any given Sunday, it’s not unusual for a child to show up in a much-loved Halloween costume, even though October may be far distant on the calendar. I smiled and asked the butterfly if I might bless her wings. Hearing no objection, I did so and the butterfly and her momma returned to their seats.

The congregation gathered on the patio and lawn after church for our annual picnic. Adults stood or sat on the lawn in clusters. Children ran an imaginary slalom course between them. In several places, games were underway. (How many mini-marshmallows can you transfer from a bowl to a plate using only a straw??) The sun was warm, the morning tranquil. In busy Boulder, Colorado people often rush off after church, headed to hikes or golf, ball games or dog walks. Not so this day. The hazy summer sky bid everyone to resist the urge to go and do, and instead just stop and be.

And that’s generally all the invitation God needs to show up: just stop and be.

The butterfly-clad child and several others were playing on the labyrinth. Nearby two teams of children raced each other to see which team could place the most articles of clothing and accessories on a stationary volunteer before the game leader called “time!” As I watched, a solitary butterfly threaded its own slalom course in the air above their heads, turning like a yellow leaf spins in the air of autumn. It was as if the butterfly—most likely a Western Tiger Swallowtail—sought to consecrate the air above the child dressed in its image before it landed in a nearby tree. I found the girl’s mother. “Come look at this,” I said, and we made our way to the labyrinth. She pointed out the butterfly to her daughter. It was hard to see against the leaves but we agreed that something special had just happened.

The Western Tiger Swallowtail lives a mere six to fourteen days. [1] Writer Haruki Murakami calls butterflies “punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness [which has no] beginning or end.” [2] In this endless stream I am in the late afternoon of my mortal life. The little girls on the labyrinth are just past day break of theirs. The swallowtail, so briefly here, so lightly impacting this earth we all share, was perhaps at the zenith of her own.

In some other town on an early summer morning, another butterfly is likely sailing through the air above the head of some other small child. In some other region of the earth, at the same moment, someone else is standing still and God is finding an opening to course through the air nearby. We are all part of the great stream of consciousness, all of us life-forms: those of us without wings, those of us with them, and those of us temporarily costumed so. And in that stream God shows up, taking the form and face that is appropriate for the place and time.

This should not surprise us. The gospel reading appointed for Trinity Sunday includes one of my favorite bits of Scripture—the closing verse of the Gospel of Matthew (28:20) wherein the Christ says to his friends, “…be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (New Living Translation) I am indeed quite sure of this. Sunday reminded me of it. All the invitation God needs to show up is that we stop and be.

 [1] http://butterfliesathome.com/western-tiger-swallowtail-butterfly.htm 

[2] Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/butterflies