chasing butterflies...

Today my boys and I took Spring's delicious invitation to bask in the mid-morning sunshine.  There was a little butterfly...probably the first real, live butterfly that my oldest son has ever seen.  He was so excited.  He darted this way and that, squealing in pure delight as he tried to chase his butterfly.  He did well for a few minutes, until the butterfly decided to fly over the fence and into the neighbor's yard.  We tried to explain that the butterfly would be back, or maybe a different one.  It was just going to play somewhere else for a while.

His smile faded but he quickly found something else to explore.  A little later, here came another butterfly.  It was hard to tell if it was the same one or a different one.  Again the delightful chase began.  And as he stood by the old, white garden gate, watching the butterfly as it flitted off to yet another distant adventure, I began to see the parallel...

So many "butterflies" have fluttered through my life.  Dreams, they are--always beckoning, always beautiful.  But no matter how hard I try, I can never quite reach them, or grasp them, or hold them in my hands.  As I think about my current dream, my present little butterfly I am pursuing, I realize that my chase has been somewhat sluggish.  I dream and I wish and I hope, but I want it now, not later, not someday.  I get frustrated thinking that my dream is so far down the road.  But perhaps I can learn a lesson from my sweet little son (as I so often do).  Perhaps the joy is not in the getting.  Perhaps the joy is in the pursuing.