Do not pretend to understand something that you do not. It is one of the worst possible things to do. – Count Leo Tolstoy
For the umpteenth time, an individual, this time a highly respected healthcare executive sitting across from me in my office, has questioned me about how you measure loving care. As always, the question is well meaning. The idea seems to be that if we can measure loving care, then maybe we can more easily replicate it – sort of bottle it and sell it (as many have tried to do.)
Consider the case of the Glasswing butterfly, brought to my attention by regular Journal contributor Liz Wessel, a home care nurse and mission officer at St. Joseph Health System in California….
Because the Glasswing lives in Central and South America, it’s appearance is especially startling to North
Americans. What beautiful and stunning creatures. Its Spanish name is espejitos, which means "little mirrors." And in the many mirrors of this butterfly, we can see reflected the truth and power of mystery. Among the many ironies surrounding this luminescent animal include the following: its favorite foods is the passion plant, it lays its eggs on deadly nightshade plants, and, as a caterpillar, the poisons that protect it from being eaten are converted to pheromones by the males to make them attractive to females. Accordingly, this amazing creation is simultaneously beautiful to us, sometimes poisonous, and feeds on passion flowers!
Some aspects of the Glasswing can be measured: habitat, size, numbers in certain locations. How do we measure why they are beautiful? How do we describe the essence of their pulchritude?
Many of us often default to the lowest and most commonly used adjectives to describe what we think is beautiful. "Wow!" "That’s really cool." Or the most painfully overused adjective of our time: "Awesome." The problem with over-used adjectives is that they demean true appreciation. It’s too easy to dismiss miracles with trite phrases. Deeper appreciation calls us to extend our vocabulary and, along with it, our sense of 
gratitude.
Still, no words can successfully quantify the mystery of the Glasswing’s beauty. Nor do any words explain her power to enchant us.
What are we to learn from the image of the Glasswing? What do you think? Are we to understand that beauty is to be appreciated both with our senses and beyond them? Does the Glasswing help us to grasp that the most important things in the world cannot be measured?
No matter how often I offer explanations like these, I meet resistance -particularly from the concrete thinkers of this world. Business people want to reproduce mystery so they can sell it. Scientists want to measure beauty so they can understand it.
The caregivers who seem most joyful are those who respond to mystery not with hyper-analysis, but with gratitude. They admire the Glasswing, they celebrate great art, and they deepen their appreciation of the world by cultivating radical presence to it.
There is no more important force in the world than the energy of Love. How much do you love? If you can measure your answer, than my guess is that that the depth of Love’s truest energy has eluded you. For Love is not measured. Love is lived.
The is no path to Love. Love is the path.
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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