March 23, 2006
time to face the strange changes...a morning meditation
This is from the Northumbria community again.
The readings this morning are all about change. The compilers of the prayerbook even go as far as to place this pithy saying for the reader to enjoy: "Perpetual Change is here to stay!" This appears to be the truth of things lately. And I for one am struggling under the weight of it all.
Don't get me wrong. For the most part, this struggle is a good one. Friends are moving. Some for good reasons. Some for ill. One way or another Trish and I will be going elsewhere since our building has been sold. I may have said this before, but I have never lived in any place longer than I have lived in this old apartment. Change, as I understand it, is the norm. Such generous shifts are uncomfortable to say the least...but they are also often the norm. Heck, they are often the signs of growth...or at the very least opportunities for growth.
People move, change employment, graduate, rearrange furniture, it really doesn't matter. Our children grow. Our parents age. These relatively small change are daily, constant.
Living in this apartment for so long reminds me that somehow a stillness, a changelessness is almost required to navigate such Perpetual Change. I can't deny that as much as I see the wisdom of a connection to an inner stillness, I still desire an outer stillness. I will rail against change. To everything there is a season. Is there a season for stillness? It is certainly considered a virtue by some. The Benedictine Rule asks that adherents take vows...and one is of stability. Stability is a virtue? Wondrous...but how utterly inconceivable.
This morning I heard a bird singing outside my window. It is the first such bird of spring for me. It is cold this morning. It is hard to believe spring is here, but it is. I welcome this change. And somehow the signs of this change, a bird singing, brings with it a stillness, a changelessness, a welcome rhythm. Change is often its own stability. Is this what the vow refers to? Stabilitas does not necessarily mean changlessness, but perhaps it means constancy.
God is changeless. Psalmists proclaim this. Even though God changes God's mind from time to time as with Noah, or Jesus is surprised as with the woman wwith the flow of blood (crumbs!), God is nonetheless Stable. Constant. The mercy of the Lord never ceases.
Often I encounter people bemoaning change...the sheer rapiditiy of change in our hypertechnological world. What I am beginning to wonder is if this change is an illusion of some sort. Have things really changed for me? I mean, is the internet a sign of change in my life? I am less and less convinced that it is.
Sobriety is a change. Marriage, well, that was a change. There are certainly changes. Are they? I am unsure even as I write this if they are really changes. How different am I? "The man and the boy are the same, only the man is moreso."
Maybe, just maybe, change is the illusion after all. It is an illusion that crashes down upon us relentlessly. But reality, our place in God's Kingdom, our status as homo orans is changelss and no matter how I may reel from the changes about me, stability is my rule.
change, stability , Northumbria
Posted by tripp at March 23, 2006 05:45 AM