change[ndings]

This weekend has been just cool enough to make me feel that autumn is, in fact, just around the corner. I’ve resisted the fact that my zucchinis are not coming as fast and strong as they were, and the night-blooming primroses are blooming fewer and smaller flowers every night. College students will be filling the rows again of HBIC soon, my term with Habitat will conclude, my time in Harrisburg will change. I have said some goodbyes lately, too, which only makes me feel more on the verge of change -- I sat on Katie’s bed a few weeks ago as she packed for a wedding weekend in Ohio, for her honeymoon, and for her new apartment and life with Craig in Pittsburgh. I sat on a bed in a beautiful vacation home with my sisters from SoJo the week before last for a sweet reunion of sorts where I hugged tightly Julie who leaves this week for grad school in Wales. I spent time this past week in Lancaster with Steph, who also leaves this week for a year in Zambia. I hugged Farrah, who heads to Israel for the next nine months. I offered prayers for Amy in church this morning who leaves for South Asia later this month. Ah yes, the winds of change blow.

I used to think that there were seasons of transition and change, and then there were seasons of “normal days” and routine, somewhere in the space between the many goodbyes and hellos in our lives. Now I am starting to believe that all of life is one big, unraveling time of transition--there is always movement, daily change, no matter how small or how little we are aware of it. I am always brought back to thoughts about the green-growing things--one day there are clusters of leaves and it seems so hard to believe that the plants can change and that real vegetables can grow from and with clusters of leaves. And then, two weeks later, you have thirty red, fleshy tomatoes in your arms and you can’t remember what the green leaves look like by themselves, and how small and fragile and meek they started out in your humble garden box. That’s often how I feel on the verge of endings--how DID we get here? Where did all the tomatoes come from and when did all my friends leave? I never see the change coming, but oh, it comes and everything looks different all of a sudden on the other side of the swells of goodbyes and hellos. And no matter how hard you try to pinpoint when everything became different, the moment that marks all this change remains a mystery.

But, alas, change is a beautiful two-sided coin. There are the meaningful goodbyes and the endings, but then there are the hopeful, anticipatory hellos and beginnings. The leaves are going to start changing, Nathan is moving to Harrisburg, Heather will be taking Katie’s room, classes will start up at HBIC, more good friends will marry, I will be having some adventures in the coming weeks before and after my Americorps stint ends.

And so, winds of change, do your thing. I’m ready and I’m learning to pay attention.

*

“But one day the wind will show you its kindness
and remove the tiny patches that
covered our eyes,

and we will see God more clearly
than we have ever seen
ourselves.”
-excerpt from a poem by Meister Eckhart