First published in the Baptist Times - OUTSIDE EDGE column - 29 October 2010
When we first moved to this area of natural beauty, I was thrilled by all the butterflies, even the ordinary Cabbage Whites fluttering over the flowerbeds in their dozens. I was less thrilled when, after laying orange eggs on the undersides of any cabbage leaf lookalike, they left an army of caterpillars mowing every plant except the lawn.
More desirable are the exotic butterflies: Painted Ladies arising in a cloud when anyone walks past the buddleia bush; Red Admirals, Tortoiseshells, Peacocks and a flock of blue and yellow varieties here and gone too soon to identify. Even the browns have beautiful markings and enticing names - Speckled Wood and Meadow Brown.
There is even a Hummingbird Hawkmoth, at first sight an oversized bee and at second sight a tiny bird. The rounded body, tapered head, long thin ‘beak’ probing the flowers and the faster-than-a-blink whirring motion of the wings make you think you’re seeing a miniature hummingbird. It’s extraordinary.
But I haven’t yet seen a Scarlet Emperor. I know it exists. I remember the name, from childhood. It couldn’t have become extinct since then, could it?
I asked some nature-literate friends. They ummed and ahhed and looked it up in their butterfly books but no joy. I googled butterflies, then moths. There was a Purple Emperor, and several imperial-looking scarlet creatures, but none called Scarlet Emperor.
The search for something I know exists but can’t locate recalls a man engaged in a frustrating search for faith. He felt he did have faith, but of the Cabbage White variety - more a nuisance than a blessing - while others had faith of the Scarlet Emperor kind.
I met him via his minister. I can’t remember how he worded the suggestion that I pray with him but the subtext was that the guy was heavy going. So I prayed and asked God in advance who he was and where he was coming from, and arrived for the meeting armed with an idea of a man with very high expectations of himself, perhaps imposed by his father way-back-when, and that this was affecting his expectations of faith.
He categorically denied this. He was a laid-back guy, he said, and his parents had been easygoing. During conversation, he described an episode when his father left him to walk five miles home alone because, in a primary school football match, he had let in a goal.
I asked him how he’d describe his present faith. So sub-standard it could hardly be said to exist, he said. So I asked how he expected his faith should be, and he said, filled with joy and singing praise at all times. Shocked, I asked where on earth this strange preconception had come from and he said, from all his Christian friends.
I asked if he thought this was realistic and, shocked in his turn, he asked what my expectation of faith was? I said I felt joy was not the goal of faith, but a by-product of accepting life as it was - difficult, painful and frightening for much of the time, interspersed with large dollops of major suffering, and only survived with God’s help.
His minister intervened here and suggested my pessimistic view was due to my Catholic upbringing, whereupon the man said his upbringing had been Jewish and he found this an accurate view of life and attainable faith.
In fact, he already had this kind of faith. He just didn’t have ethereal joy. He had been pursuing the Scarlet Emperor ideal when he was more a Meadow Brown kind of guy.
That’s not to say Scarlet Emperor faith is unattainable: joy, ecstasy, visions and miracles in Christian life are realities. Just, we need to know that the ideal of faith we pursue is the species we’re meant to be seeking.
I did find the Scarlet Emperor finally. Accidentally. I commented on a neighbour’s runner beans. They looked very healthy. And she said yes, she grew an oldfashioned variety. Scarlet Emperor was the name.
Clare Nonhebel’s new book ‘Finding Oasis,’ publ. Authentic Media, is on sale in bookshops or online
