The Butterfly of the Soul

Words carry weight.

Scripture has always known this. Proverbs tells us that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” James compares the tongue to the rudder of a ship and to a tiny spark capable of setting an entire forest ablaze. Paul urges the Church, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” John goes even further. He begins his Gospel by calling Jesus the Word made flesh. If Christ reveals the heart of God through his words, then those who speak in his name should do so with great care.

Words are never neutral. They do more than communicate ideas; they shape identity. This is especially true for those entrusted with leadership in the Church. We preach the gospel, pray with people in moments of grief and joy, baptise their children, bury their loved ones, and accompany them through the ordinary seasons of life. Our words are heard within relationships of trust. A sentence spoken in passing may be remembered for decades. Equally, a gentle word offered at the right moment may become the beginning of healing.

In later Greek tradition, psyche—the soul—also became associated with the butterfly. Whether or not that association reaches back into the New Testament, I love the image.

The soul is rather like a butterfly: capable of extraordinary beauty and remarkable resilience, yet delicate enough to be damaged by rough hands. A butterfly with torn wings may still live, but it struggles to fly.

Over the years I have begun to notice four ways the butterfly of the soul is wounded in church life.

The first is through words that diminish.

I remember, with painful clarity, being told by a church leader, “You bring nothing of value to this church.” The person who spoke those words may have forgotten them within days. I have carried them for years.

Most of us can recall a sentence that lodged itself deep within us. It returns unexpectedly in moments of uncertainty. We know it is not true, yet it still has the power to wound because of who spoke it.

It is striking that from the opening pages of Genesis, God creates through speech. “Let there be…” and life begins. Human beings cannot create worlds as God does, but we do create climates and cultures. We create spaces where people flourish or places where they quietly retreat into self-doubt.

To tell someone they have nothing to offer is to speak against the grain of the gospel. Every person bears the image of God. Every member of Christ’s body has gifts that are needed. The calling of a shepherd is not to make people feel smaller, but to help them discover who they already are in Christ.

Other wounds come through words that manipulate.

Manipulation almost always borrows the language of love, concern or faith. That is what makes it difficult to recognise. Questions become rebellion. Disagreement becomes disloyalty. Hurt becomes oversensitivity. Sometimes conversations are quietly rewritten. Memories are denied. Reality itself begins to shift until people no longer trust their own judgement.

I know something of this. There was a season when I found myself living inside a story someone else had written about me. For a while I mistook it for the truth. It took grace, trusted friends and time to remember that Christ names us more truthfully than our critics ever can.

James writes, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.” There is something deeply inconsistent about worshipping God while using spiritual language to distort another person’s identity.

I’ve never met anyone who became more like Christ because they were controlled. Fear can produce compliance for a while, but it never produces freedom. Healthy leadership points beyond itself. It helps people become more deeply rooted in Christ.

Then there are words that condemn.

This is not the same as conviction. The Holy Spirit convicts because God longs to restore us. Condemnation leaves people believing they are beyond restoration.

I have met too many people who struggle to believe in God’s grace, not because of what they have read in Scripture, but because of the way Scripture was spoken over them. The Bible became associated not with hope but with fear.

Yet Paul writes, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” If our words leave people carrying a burden Christ has already lifted, then they no longer sound like the gospel.

Not every wound, however, is spoken aloud.

Some are communicated through silence.

There are phone calls that never come. Goodbyes that are never offered. Invitations that quietly stop arriving. Years of faithful service disappear from the telling of a church’s history. Sometimes people are not confronted; they are simply forgotten. Their names are no longer spoken. Their contribution quietly fades from memory.

Silence has a language of its own.

It whispers, “You no longer matter.”

The New Testament repeatedly calls us to encourage one another, bear one another’s burdens, honour one another and forgive one another. Sometimes our failure is not saying the wrong thing but saying nothing at all. Failing to thank. Failing to acknowledge. Failing to bless. Failing to say goodbye.

Not every relationship can be repaired. Not every disagreement can be resolved. But every person deserves to be treated with dignity, especially when they leave.

When I read the Gospels, I am struck by how often Jesus restores people with a single word.

To frightened disciples he says, “Peace.”

To Mary, weeping outside the tomb, he simply says, “Mary.”

To Zacchaeus he restores his place as a “son of Abraham.”

To the woman who had spent twelve years defined by her illness, he says one astonishing word:

“Daughter.”

Before he speaks about her healing, he speaks about her belonging. Before he restores her body, he restores her identity.

That is what the words of Jesus do.

They remind people who they truly are.

The Church has not always reflected his voice. Sometimes we have wounded where we should have healed. Sometimes we have remained silent when love required us to speak. Sometimes we have forgotten people whom Christ has never forgotten.

Yet I have seen another story too. I have watched people recover their voices. I have seen trust rebuilt through patient kindness, honest apologies, faithful presence and words spoken with grace. Healing rarely arrives all at once. More often it comes quietly, through people whose speech sounds a little more like Jesus.

So, dear pastor, remember that among your congregation are people carrying invisible wounds. Some have been diminished. Some manipulated. Some condemned. Some quietly forgotten. Some still struggle to believe that God is gentle because those who represented him were not.

Speak carefully, not because words are fragile, but because souls are precious. Speak in such a way that people hear more of Christ than they hear of you. Speak words that leave people freer, more hopeful and more deeply rooted in the love of God.

For every person you meet carries within them something as beautiful, and as vulnerable, as the butterfly of the soul.

Your words may strengthen its wings.

Or they may break them.

May yours be the kind of words that help weary souls take flight again.

— Rev’d Jon Swales MBE

Updated and expanded from an original reflection written in 2024.