A Tale of Three Butterflies

For most Create in Me retreats, we have a community art project, something we can work on together.  Some times, the work stays at Lutheridge, like the cross as tall as a human, made of clear plastic, filled with broken things.  One year, we knotted a quilt for Lutheran World Relief.  This year, we made a huge butterfly, decorated with bits of nature.  I brought it back to my house because Lutheridge didn't really have a place for it, and it had so much glue on it that I wasn't sure it was a good idea to leave it beside a trail to decompose, as we had once thought we would do:

Here's what it looked like at worship yesterday:

It began as a series of fan blades.  Here's what it looked like when my spouse and I first constructed it last week:

I felt a keen sense of failure and despair at this early stage.  My friend on the planning team had sent me this picture when describing what the group had in mind and asking if my spouse could build the base for it:

I wrote to my friend to tell her that we might not have created what she had in mind.  She wrote back the most perfect reply:  "It will look just as it should--a unique community effort."  I so needed those words, to know that I hadn't let the team down.

In the end, I like what we created better.  One friend used the leftover dried flowers that she created for her drop in station.  We used some of the leftover wood circles that had been cut for a prayer project.  We used interesting bits that people found during outdoor time.  

And in the end, yes, it looked just the way it needed to look--many good life lessons/reminders here.