A Changing Past

The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present, and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future – Audrey Hepburn

Some people are pretty good at living life on life’s terms. They make plans for a picnic and if it rains, they simply change directions and go to a movie, instead. They don’t let the weather affect their attitude. They don’t curse the rain. They don’t pitch a fit. They simply make an adjustment and find some alternative activity they can enjoy, and then they go do that instead. They’re resilient that way.

They’ve learned to be flexible and to look for options. They seem to have learned somewhere along the way that “all problems are illusions of the mind” (Eckhart Tolle). It’s only a problem if you make it one.

There are almost always options that lie before us. Is there ever NOT one?

Let’s face it, life always gives us choices. Even if picnics and movies are taken off the table, there is still sitting quietly and being bored. That’s not a very exciting option, but it’s still one that exists.

Life isn’t about having no alternatives, but determining what options we choose to find or create. Many of life’s joys are to be found in looking for (and discovering) opportunities we may not have realized were in front of us.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a rut and it is just easier to stay there (and complain) than to turn the wheel and force the tires out of those channels and onto a new course. People prefer to complain about the wind than put up a windfarm, or complain about decisions made in city hall or the halls of government than talk or write to their representatives.

There is very little in life we can control, and that is what some people find most disturbing. They feel they need to be in control. They make plans and woe-be-tide the person, place, or thing that gets in the way. Control, however, is the antithesis of love. How can one love anything or anyone if they’re trying to manipulate it all?

Have you ever tried to “will” the wind to stop? It blows when and where it wishes. All we can do is go with it, fight it, or hunker down and ride it out. Another option is to hate it, but that is also a choice.

I know I may get tired of the wind, but then I’ll see a child and parent run outside into the lot across the street and fly their kite – watching it dip and turn and dance upon the breeze – all the while they’re having the time of their lives. The wind blows so hard they don’t need to run to get the kite to fly; it is carried away upon the gale!

The whooshing air at which I want to scowl is the same breeze that delights my neighbors. What’s the difference? It isn’t the moving air; it is the attitude of the participant!

So what needs to change isn’t the world around me but the attitude within me, and that’s where I can really get stuck – because who in their right mind wants to change?

Ah; there’s the rub. We may fight against change; we may buck up against it, but life is ever-changing and never the same, and those in their right mind have learned that basic truth.

I was down in the park watching the river flow past and couldn’t help but note that it’s not really the same river I saw the day before; yesterday’s water is somewhere between here and the Gulf of Mexico, and today’s water came from somewhere upstream from God only knows where. How amazing is that?

The fact is, life happens, which means change happens. To accept that simple fact is to actually begin to discover one’s “right mind”. We may not want things to change, but since they do, we are probably well-served to accept that change happens, and learn to not only live with it, but “let go (of control) and let God”.

Life, it turns out, isn’t a problem to be solved, but a kite to be ridden on the currents of God’s love. We are tethered to a loving Father who delights to see us rise in this, our valley.