2013 - The Only Constant Is Change!

The Only Constant Is Change!

Currently, I am standing at the threshold of some major life changes.  In addition to my youngest child graduating from 8^th grade and my eldest going off to Israel, we are moving to a new home.

I am both excited and apprehensive about all these changes. I pride myself with “feeling the fear and doing it anyway.” I am also filled with the sense that I wish life would slow down, just for a moment, for the kids to still be young enough for me to cuddle them, or at least for them not to be towering over me when I try to hug them.  I wish that we could actually enjoy spring before summer shows up, for time to briefly stand still.  I want the familiar, that with which I have become accustomed, to remain the same.

And yet, life always changes, despite my desires for things to stay fixed.  The status quo is never truly the same. What works for us one day doesn’t always work the next. When we think we have all the answers, something or someone shows up and we are forced to question, examine, and wonder if who, what and where we ARE is who, what and where we need to BE.

Every Friday, I have the great privilege of teaching senior citizens who live in a retirement community. My youngest student is an 85 year old woman. These folks are living proof that nothing, absolutely nothing, remains the same.  They tell me stories about their lives, share anecdotes about their youth, adulthood, and beyond.   “Life is always in flux,” they tell me.  “Sometimes we only realize it after the fact, but change is always happening, slowly, under the surface, even when you are not aware of it.”

Some changes, like moving into a new home, we choose deliberately, while others, we simply witness, as when our children grow up and become adults. Either type of change provides us with the opportunity to be consciously engaged in the process.  With all changes, we have the potential to shift, become different and, depending on how we respond to them, we may grow intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. 

What is changing in your life? How do you feel about it?  What remains the same? How do you feel about that?   What are the changes that you are making intentionally? Which changes feel as though they are “happening to” you?

As we step into summer, I bless us all with the Serenity Prayer: Let us accept the things that we cannot change, let us have the courage to change the things that we can, and let us possess the wisdom to know the difference.