Saving A Butterfly

"The butterfly effect" is a phrase that came to Hollywood and our culture from chaos theory and the abstract mathematical models of Edward Lorenz. The idea is that even the smallest alteration of the first cause in a series can produce a vast change in the final result. So in theory the slight alteration of the tiny breeze caused by a butterfly's wing could eventually change the course of a great hurricane. That is the theory. It always sounded ridiculous to me, until now.

I was recently sent a butterfly story by my friend, and dogged researcher, whom I call Flounder (actually he calls himself Flounder which is why I call him Flounder—I have strange readers and friends). It is an Associated Press story out of Lake Luzerne, N.Y., on Nov. 20, reporting that after a sudden and early cold snap in the Adirondack Mountains, Jeannette Brandt, who was out for a bike ride, saw a freezing and injured monarch butterfly by the side of the road. Miracle No. 1 was that she saw it. Miracle No. 2 was that she stopped to pick it up and take it home in her empty water bottle. Miracle No. 3 was that she and her partner, Mike Parwana, actually figured out how to glue some tiny cardboard splints to its broken wings. It boggles my mind that their Internet search turned up a nine-minute video demonstration, posted by Live Monarch, a nonprofit foundation based in Boca Raton, Fla., on how to fix a broken butterfly wing. Miracle No. 4 was that they were able to fatten up the gimpy butterfly on some rotten pears and honey from the bees they keep. Miracle No. 5 was that after announcing at a truck stop that they had someone who needed a ride home, some trucker from Alabama offered to transport the butterfly down South. Miracle No. 6? A call from the trucker letting them know that the butterfly was flying free in Florida.

Perhaps none of the steps that helped this otherwise doomed butterfly find its way south to a new generation of color and hope strictly qualifies as a miracle. None of them involves the suspension of the natural order, but then again perhaps they do. There are so many broken butterflies and broken people on the sides of America's roads right now. The natural order of our Darwinian culture is for them to just perish, but this butterfly is not dead and frozen. The butterfly is basking in Boca and that sounds like a miracle to me.

At a nearby church last Sunday I brought some contributions and volunteers from my synagogue and joined with people from other churches and from no churches at all to fill food boxes for families who are suffering. Most of the box-fillers were there because just one person asked them to help distribute food to the poor on a cold, clear Sunday before Thanksgiving. Just one person asked, but it was enough to change them at least for one Sunday. This is what I mean by the butterfly effect.

Maria, who had very few teeth, was one of the people who needed food. She told me, "I ain't got no money but thank God I got this place and I got them," pointing to the kids loading up her boxes. Maria has no car and after her boxes were filled, someone said, "I have someone here who needs a ride home." That is what I mean by the butterfly effect.

Food rescue organizations are experiencing an unprecedented expansion of need this year and an unprecedented shortness of supply. It does not matter if you have time to get a turkey over to your local food pantry, shelter or soup kitchen before Thanksgiving. All that matters is that you get there someday soon with your heart broken and your hands full. All that matters is that you are not traveling down the road so fast that you cannot see the broken ones you pass along the way. You and I are not good at fixing the international credit markets, but we can become very good at splinting butterfly wings and filling boxes of food for people like Maria.

While we're at it, we can save some starfish. I have told you before of my favorite story by Loren Eiseley about an old man on a beach who was throwing starfish into the ocean after a storm. A young jogger approaches him and asks what he's doing. The old man says the storm washed the starfish up on the beach and that he has to get them back into the water before the sun dries them out. The young man laughs and says, "Old man you are a fool. Look at this beach. There are too many starfish to save and the sun is already high. What you are doing just does not matter." The old man bends down, throws another starfish into the safety of the waves and says, "It mattered to that one."

Perhaps you will do something noble and small because you read this. Perhaps I would not have written this if Flounder had not sent me the story of how Jeannette Brandt found a butterfly with a broken wing by the side of a cold mountain road. This is what I mean by the butterfly effect.

My prayer for all of us on this Thanksgiving and on all the days after:

May you find a butterfly to splint,

May you find a person to feed,

May you find a starfish to save,

And may a year of miracles begin with us now.

© 2008