Many years ago, when I was prayerfully considering what my Lenten practices would be, I felt invited by the Lord to write six letters to my father, one for each week of Lent. My father, who was 57 at the time, was a fallen-away Methodist, who explained to me that he believed in the man Jesus Christ and his goodness but did not believe in all the stuff about his being the son of God.
My father was also sick with terminal carcinoid cancer. He and I lived across the country from one another, but I visited him often; and when I did, he would come with me to Mass at the local Catholic church. But if I wasn’t there he would never go, even though he was drawn to a particular priest at the church, Father Phil.
And he drifted along like this for years.
So that Lent I did write the letters, one for each week. Of course, it was a self-discipline in a way; but they were also letters filled with love for my father, details about my life and all the ways I experienced God—his “grandeur” and spark everywhere. My father thanked me for the letters. But otherwise, he remained silent.
One Scripture passage that loops back to me from time to time is about patience: “See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient until it receives the early and the late rains” (Jas 5:7). I love this image because it holds silence, time and the mystery of what occurs beyond our sight and control. Seeds, birds, rain, figs, grains of wheat—we understand cycles in the natural world on an intuitive level, and so also the larger patterns they represent.
Last fall I discovered the banded woolly bear caterpillar. I was visiting Collegeville, Minn., as a resident scholar of the Collegeville Institute when I encountered this creature: two inches of black and rusty red fuzz wriggling across a road. Then I saw scores of them.
To become the Isabella tiger moth, the autumn generation of the banded woolly bear must first overwinter as a caterpillar, which it does by freezing. Yes, you read that right, it freezes—first the heart stops beating, then the gut freezes, then the blood and finally the rest of the body. But the caterpillar’s cells are protected by the presence of glycerol, which functions as an antifreeze. Months later, when the harsh weather finally breaks and the temperatures warm, the caterpillar thaws and revives. Only then can it feed and pupate within a cocoon, finally emerging as the brief, yellow-winged Isabella tiger moth.
To me this little woolly bear caterpillar came to represent trust and waiting on a whole new level. Before it can even wait in the cocoon, it must first wait out the winter. And yet, this waiting is all part of the process of becoming.
I think our offerings to God are like that caterpillar. They may move on tiny feet, but they keep finding the way forward. They munch, they grow, they rest, they wriggle. They survive predators and parasites and trucks barreling down the road. There is courage in finding the right spot to lie down for the winter, hoping that the racoons, skunks and mice will not discover it. And finally, there is blind trust that what is frozen solid and seems dead is not dead but merely waiting for the right moment.
About two years later my father’s condition significantly worsened, and when I came to visit him, he was so ill that he needed to spend most of his time in bed. He couldn’t go to Mass with me, and I could see the sadness and disappointment in his eyes. I had asked him many times before on previous visits if I could call Father Phil and invite him over to the house. He had always refused. But this time he looked at me for a long time and slowly nodded.
Father Phil came the next day, and the two of them immediately connected. They both had a dry sense of humor, and my father related his whole story to Father Phil: the late discovery of the cancer, the failed liver transplant, the three painful chemoembolizations, the debilitating symptoms, culminating with, “Then, just for fun, I got medically-induced lupus.”
The talk turned to faith, and I couldn’t keep from crying when Father Phil led him in praying the Our Father and they agreed to meet again soon. After that, my father met with Phil often and they became friends. Ultimately my father converted to Catholicism.
One of my favorite things about the banded woolly bear is that when it thaws from its deep freeze, its story begins anew. It feeds and gets ready for the next great unknown: pupating. It weaves a silk cocoon. Then once again it falls into a state of immobile stillness, this time during its metamorphosis into the Isabella tiger moth.
Does it know what it will become? Or does it simply unspool patient becoming as its way of being?
When my dad was close to death, Father Phil came and prayed with him. He said, “John, I know you can’t speak but just squeeze my hand a little and both you and I know we are praying together.” I had been at my father’s side the whole day, and I could sense that my father shifted into peace when they prayed. My dad died that evening, and when Father Phil returned and we prayed, I realized that his presence during this heart-wrenching moment of loss was an unexpectedly profound ministry to me also.
The tiny feet of my Lenten letters to my father may have opened a conversation within him and played a part in his journey. But they also had a surprising impact on my own life. Those letters were some of the first things I wrote about faith. Subsequent Lenten letters written for other people evolved into other types of writing—essays, poems and books. And, even here in these words you are reading, those Lenten letters to my father have found yet another purpose.
So, dear friend, be encouraged.
Be open to the mysterious conspiracy between you and your God.
Wait for both the early rains and the late rains.
Be patient, though things may appear to be frozen solid in a deep winter. What you sincerely offer to God may take a startling turn. Tiny feet can be tenacious, and the unknown can unfold into astonishing and unforeseen wings.
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