On a Rock?

In my spiritual wanderings and explorations, what has brought me the most comfort and discomfort together has been the Buddhist notion of impermanence. It is difficult to conceive of not possessing a permanent “self” that persists. This Earthbound Spirit is essentially the same as the Earthbound Spirit of yesterday, or so I like to think. On the other hand, raising teenagers made me grateful for impermanence. I can always remind myself “This, too, shall pass. S/he won’t be 14, 15, 16… forever.”

I offer a story. When I was a child, my family vacationed often in the northern part of a northern state. One of our favorite destinations was a state park which featured bluffs to climb and huge waterfalls.

As a child, the falls seemed majestic… and scary. All that water flowing over those big, sharp rocks! And the sound – a roaring and rushing that would surely drown out any call for help. You can be sure this little spirit always held tightly to one of her parents’ hands when we went up close to see. We vacationed there often, and always hiked to look at the falls. I confess, I preferred the beach and the droplets of penny-colored water that would collect in the pail I used to create sand castles.

Many years passed. I grew up, moved away from home, married, and had little spirits of my own. One day, after suffering complications after surgery, my father’s earthly life ended, and he returned to – as poet Wendell Berry says – rest in the grace of the world. My spouse and I were given the old movie projector, and reels and reels of movies taken by my father, most of them of those childhood vacations. With our children, we watched the movies of the waterfalls at the state park, and decided to include it in our next family vacation.

When we arrived, we explored the park. There were now new buildings and nice new paths and walkways offering convenient and accessible views of the natural wonders. As we looked at the waterfall, I commented that it seemed smaller than in the movies – or in my memory. The dh teased me, saying that it looked smaller because I was now bigger! But – a sign at the next viewing spot informed us that the falls were indeed shorter than they had been. The water had frozen a few years earlier, during an unusually cold winter, with the subsequent expansion of cracks in the rocks causing the falls to (ahem) fall!

What a demonstration of impermanence. The solid rock that seemed destined to be there forever, was no more. This gave me a whole new perspective on building one’s house on a rock. It might postpone change – but change will eventually occur. Whatever may seem to be forever will change. What we have the ability to do is sometimes limited to choosing what our response will be to the changes that occur.

As children grow, we can choose to embrace the new people they become – or to mourn losing our “little babies.” As relationships change, we can choose to change as well, to hang in there even if we can’t change – or to part company. As the world changes, sometimes we have little choice but to accept it – but we can do so gracefully or not. Sometimes we have the opportunity to influence change, sometimes not. Sadly, history is filled with wars fought to protest or try to prevent change.

And, no matter what we do, there will always be changes we can’t predict. As the saying goes, “If you want to make God laugh, make plans.” Well, I continue to make plans, and listen for the laughter, knowing that things will happen beyond my control. I may as well try to make friends with change, since I know change and I will be together for the rest of my life…