Eleanor Rigby

Despite my age, I never was a big Beatles fan. I think there was just too much going on in my life for me to swoon over the group though many in my dorm were devotees.
But yesterday morning when I woke up, the lyrics of Eleanor Rigby were dancing in my head.


Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from ?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong ?

Have you ever felt like Eleanor Rigby? I have. I would paste on my smile and go into the world believing that it really did not matter whether I showed up or not.
Abuse does that. It really doesn't matter whether it was verbal, physical or sexual abuse. I have experienced all three and defilement and invalidation of my worth first as a girl then as a woman was just as complete.
It is just like there is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant. There is no such thing as being a little abused. Sadly, self-abuse follows because you no longer see your worth either.
I have found two antidotes. Most important I must know my identity. I am not what others say I am or even what I say I am necessarily. I am not what I do. I am becoming a creation of the Most High God. Not all I can be yet, but nevertheless I am becoming. It is a process. Am becoming.
The second antidote is to help others become.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Perhaps lonely people come from never knowing our true identity.
Not feeling like you belong is a wretched trap. Kids join gangs because of it. Yet even after the initiation and the dares, the conformity, they still don't feel as if they truly fit in. There is always one more thing they must DO to prove their loyalty, to prove they fit in.
The book of rules (the law), that God gave us, was taken away when I became believer "in Christ." Jesus Christ fulfilled every bit of the law leaving none of it for me to even attempt to achieve.
The caterpillar becomes a butterfly. It doesn't become a caterpillar with wings. There is a complete metamorphosis. I think I spend too much time remembering my hairy, prickly, wiggly self instead of flexing my wings and flying in my new identity.
A monarch caterpillar sheds its skin five times during the larval stage. Similar to the way a snake sheds its skin when its body has outgrown the skin, a caterpillar does the same. A new, larger skin is always waiting under the one that is shed. The problem is at each stage I think I have arrived.
Suddenly, the chrysalis cracks open and out comes the monarch butterfly. Its wings are tiny, crumpled, and wet. The butterfly clings to its empty chrysalis shell as a blood-like substance is pumped through its body. Did you get that? Out of who I was, (that chrysalis shell, my incubator) there was life. Sometimes shame causes us to disavow our past. It is out of our pain that we can bring life to others through encouragement and sincere empathy.
About one hour after emerging from its chrysalis, the monarch's wings are full-sized, dry, and ready for flying. Days after emerging from its chrysalis, a monarch butterfly is old enough to mate.....and so begins the life cycle of the next generation. Days. Yet it has taken me years.

As I become more comfortable with who this new creation is that I am becoming, I can give encouragement to those still in the chrysalis, the Eleanor Rigbys.