With a largesse of poetic license, the mathematician Edward Norton Lorenz presented the metaphorical example of a distant butterfly flapping its tiny wings, weeks earlier in Brazil, leading to the formation of a tornado, weeks later, in Texas. The Butterfly Effect has come to mean that in a complex system, a small change can have a large influence. A question that keeps me awake at night is how many Texan Tornadoes have my flapping and flailing wrought? But then again, why be all glass-half-empty in the morning? As much as the paradigmatic example of the Butterfly Effect, for effect, results in Thundering Texan Tornadoes, why not take the glass-half-full take. Can we presume that it is possible for that flapping to be a force for good? But how does one know? I would be willing to wager that a butterfly flaps its wings without thinking twice about it. It does what it was created to do. Its wing flapping is in aid of the very telos it was created for. If a common butterfly knows its purpose, and joyfully flaps its wings, whilst bringing joy to the observer, what could we learn from said butterfly?
Laden Carts of Desserts
My family once got invited to this luxury 5-star hotel, known for its dessert carts. However, my father had strict orders for me. I got to pick one dessert. So, there I was, 10 years of age, standing in front of a cornucopia of delectable cakes, jellies, puddings, custards, pies and ice creams. And I got to pick one. The injustice, not to mention the inhumanity of it all, was worthy of criminal prosecution. I do not recall what I picked. It was delicious, and yet I remained uncontented and unhappy, thinking about all the other choices I could have made.
I feel life’s difficult choices are like that struggle I had before those dessert carts. While the choices can all be morally good, what I grapple with is the best choice (translate, easiest). I have always read the parable of the Pharisee and Tax collector praying at the temple (Luke 18:9-14) as a contrast between a hypocrite and a humble man. The latter prayed, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus tells us that the “latter went home justified, not the former.” There is certainly an element of that Pharisee in me, judgmental as I am at times of all but myself. There is also an element of that tax collector in me, where I’ve “chosen to do wrong and failed to do good.”
However, what I am beginning to realize more is that even in the goods that I have chosen, I chose the best good for me. And not what was objectively good, per God’s plan for my life. I believe the tax collector went home justified because of an admission of his failure to choose the objective good per God’s plan for his life. That tax collector also knew that like the aforementioned butterfly, his choices had consequences. Thus, he was not merely confessing the effects of his easy choices on his own life. But worse, the Texan Tornadoes he had wrought in the lives of others.
The Easy Way
When faced with life’s difficult choices, there is a certain horizon beyond which I can no longer rely on mere rationality. I find myself, suddenly, lost, indecisive, anxious, and afraid to take the plunge into an unknown that is hard, but I know God is calling me to. Nearly always I choose the easy way out at this point. Is that how I am built, weak and afraid. I guess this must be what the cardinal virtue of fortitude is all about. I have heard it said that one gains the virtue precisely in the act of executing what the virtue enables one to do. It is a chicken and egg scenario. The trick, and the easy way, is to remove all thought of oneself from the equation.
If you do not think about the inconveniences of that hard choice to oneself, but instead render those anxieties to God, paradoxically, it makes the decision of choosing the hard way so much easier. The selflessness creates the room in our heart that God desires. That He may act in and through us. That is why, when I do choose to flap my wings in the direction of God’s will, I can also be confident that there will be no Thundering Texan Tornadoes unleashed. Like that butterfly, learning to do this without thinking twice about it is the secret to a joyful life. Amen.
