The Monarch

Last year, I planted some milkweed in order to attract butterflies…and particularly, Monarch butterflies.  And although we had a caterpillar or two last year, I never saw a chrysalis or much in the way of Monarch activity.  The milkweed we planted is a perennial, so it came up again this year, much more vigorous than the first year.  And this year, I sort of hit the jackpot for Monarchs.

We have eleven in the chrysalis stage right now, with hatching to start shortly.  I never really saw any Monarch adults earlier, but evidently something happened, because the caterpillars were all over the milkweed plants.  The plants look a little haggard now, but they will recover nicely.

I have a DVD called “Metamorphosis” that describes in some detail the life cycle of butterflies, and gives some concentration on the Monarch, which is unique, they say, among the butterflies of the world.  It seems that only the Monarch as a life cycle as an adult that varies depending on the time of the year when it hatches.  Of the five or so “hatchings” of Monarchs during a calendar year, all but one of the adult life cycles is about 4 weeks.  The remaining one….the one hatching now…has a life cycle of several months.  From now until next March, these adults will live and will migrate from the USA to certain unique places in southern Mexico to winter.  They will then start back as the milkweed begins to come out of winter hibernation, lay eggs and die.  The next adults will continue the migration northward.

The DVD also describes the incredible complexity of the life cycle…from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis and finally to adult.  It gives credible information that would lead one to believe that chance and natural selection played little, if any role in the life cycle of the butterfly.  And the life cycle of the butterfly begs the question, “Why?”  Why would natural selection have resulted in such a life cycle?  And even more, how could natural selection have created such a life cycle in the first place?

The clinching factor for me regarding intelligent design versus chance evolution in the life cycle is the fact that there are two separate animals involved…the caterpillar and the adult butterfly.  Caterpillars are living stomachs, eating constantly.  There is no hint of compound eyes, articulated legs, a proboscis, or wings in the makeup of the caterpillar, except for a few cells, called imaginal cells, located in certain places within the body of the animal.

During the chrysalis stage, the caterpillar’s cells are digested into a soup…all except for the imaginal cells, which, instead of being devoured like all the other cells, go into action.  They use this soup to create wings, legs, and so on.  In other words, the caterpillar disappears…the heart, muscles, brain, nerves…all of it…are digested into a nutrient-rich soup to be used to build a butterfly.

Dr. Lincoln Brower, Entomologist and research professor at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, and recognized authority on the Monarch butterfly, says this about the chrysalis stage.  The monarch "changes its ecological niche entirely when it transforms from a caterpillar to an adult butterfly," says Dr. Brower. "They are two ecologically different organisms, as distinct as a field mouse and a hummingbird.”

I don’t know about you, but the more I see of what goes on “out  there,” the more I am convinced that there is a Force beyond the natural…beyond the chance encounter…beyond the happenstance…that has and is guiding, directing, and working in this existence.  And the quicker we acknowledge that, the more quickly we can begin to live as we were created to live…in freedom in the glorious grace of God Almighty.

The Ark Valley Interurban

Recently, I’ve become somewhat fascinated with a part of the history of Wichita and surrounding area that involves a long-abandoned rail line, the Arkansas Valley Interurban.  The Ark Valley Interurban, or AVI, was built just before WWI, and ran until WWII.  In it’s short life, it saw the explosive growth of the automobile as a favored mode of transportation, as well as great improvement in roads that those automobiles traveled upon.  And as you might surmise, that was, in large part, the reason for its eventual demise as a passenger, and later on, a freight carrier.

The AVI line began where the Drury Broadview is now in downtown Wichita, and ran northward through Valley Center, up to Newton, and over to Hutchinson.  Plans were made to expand the service south and farther to the north and west, but never really materialized.

Few remnants of the AVI are visible today.  The Broadview has an arch over a door with “AVI” inscribed in the limestone.  There are a few abandoned bridges left in rural areas, and one of the parts of the main building at Botanica is a depot for AVI.  Additionally, a few streets just to the north and east of the intersection of McLean Blvd. and 13^th Street N are at a peculiar angle, which was made necessary because of the angle of the rails of the AVI line running in that area.  Other than that, not much is left except for some memorabilia and a few books.

I myself was a child toward the end of the era of what might be called “interurban” transportation.  I recall vividly the “doodlebug” that made regular trips to Harper, where I grew up, and then on to Anthony and other places before going back to Wichita.  Carrying little of anything…freight or passengers…the railroads were forced by the Interstate Commerce Commission to continue running these routes until into the 1960’s.  One could purchase a passenger ticket on the doodlebug and ride, for example, from Harper to Anthony, or from Anthony to Wichita.  Tickets were inexpensive.  My regret now is that I didn’t take advantage of that, just for the experience of having done it.  We had no need for it; we had good vehicles.  But the experience would have been one of the best of my childhood days.

I do recall being with a farmer friend of mine who had a few dairy cows on his farm.  I was going with him to run some errands.  He had a five-gallon cream can full of raw cream from his dairy that he wanted to go to a dairy in Wichita.  We stopped at the Harper depot and he dropped off the can, signed a paper or two, and we were off to another errand.  What I didn’t realize then was that the doodlebug would leave Harper soon and take that can to the dairy in Wichita.

We all have things that we wished we either had or hadn’t done earlier in life.  My hope for you is that you have few of these, and those that you do have are those which haven’t had a huge impact on your life.  We cannot live in the past.  We cannot let the past rule our present.  We must look ahead and live life as God intended, and as the people of God that we are.