Change. Here it comes, ready or not

If I am to go on my life of the last week, it seems that the saying it never just rains, it pours, may in fact be true. Today it was pouring for hours. After making it downtown, I cocooned myself into one of the local coffee shops and stayed put until the rain let up enough for me to walk home. I have been thinking a lot about change today -- for a number of reasons. First because so much of my life right now feels completely out of my control, and the next few months, no matter what happens, are guaranteed to bring even more change into my world. Second because I have been thinking a lot about one of my best friends today who is battling lung cancer at age 34 and I am struggling with the idea of her suffering on the opposite side of the world and my not being able to be there, even though she is a battle axe, and I know she intends to fight this with everything she has got. I have also been thinking about my mother this week -- possibly because of the woman I met the other day who seemed to be so fragile, who turned out to be five years younger than my mom. It gets you thinking, you know? And then I came home this evening, and sat down to write this blog entry, and was told that Blogger is updating the look of my blog. It will have a new format. One I did not ask for, nor do I particularly want. I like my blog the way it is, dammit! But there it is nevertheless. Change staring me in the face whether I like it or not.

Change is constant. It is as necessary as the annual cycle of seasons renewing the landscape. It is exciting in ways. It is also painful. In my faith's writings it says that pain is a blessing. That the more pain we experience, the more opportunities we have to grow in new directions. I believe this wholeheartedly.

My friend Ahava, who has a radio show every Monday afternoon called Love in the Afternoon was speaking about Paradox this week, and it is interesting to me that my life this last week has been so full of paradox. Or perhaps I have just been more aware of the paradoxes because she called my attention to them.

I struggle with not having a home right now, and yet in reality I am absolutely certain that this time of homelessness will only make the experience of having a home, when this happens, so much sweeter. I have been struggling with blogging this past week. Because this blog is so public, and so much of what I am experiencing right now -- my thoughts and reflections -- are so personal. It is hard to share the experiences I am going through right now without having people judge or misinterpret where I am coming from. Think, for example, that I am unhappy or ungrateful, when in reality I am perfectly content in the most profound way right now despite all of the spiritual and physical challenges.

Writing is all about having the courage to share experience or perception even when I know people may not understand, or may misunderstand or misinterpret what I am trying to say. It is about reflecting the world around me and the experience of being human, so much of which is the experience of willingly allowing the world to grind away all of the rough edges of the self--a process beautiful and joyful and deeply painful all at once.

The rain clouds have cleared just in time for the sunset. The room I am writing in is suddenly flooded with the last warm light of the day. Tomorrow calls for more rain. I am amused by the way in which the constantly, and unpredictably fluctuating weather patterns are almost a perfect mirror image of my life right now. Or, more likely, my life is a mirror image of the pressure systems moving across the sky.

It is interesting the lengths to which the universe will go to help us grow, isn't it? This evening I am quite certain that all the external turmoil in my own life and in the world has one purpose: to help me, and the rest of humanity focus on the one thing that is stable and consistent-- our relationship with God and our spiritual growth. Because I have never been one to learn the easy way I am not sure I would be as focused on the internal stillness if it were not for the constant churning and renewal of the world around me.