I am borrowing a title from a Gino Vanelli song ( yeah the 70s) as a theme for this conversation.  Percy Bysshe Shelly was among the first to memorialize this theme in his famous poem Mutability.  According to Shelly, “naught may endure but mutability.”   In essence, the only thing that lasts is change.  This is a discomforting thought to many including me. As we go through life we develop  mastery of a subject or situation.  But as the poets have reminded us, everything and everyone is constantly changing. As School children, we learn that every four years or so we start over.  We master the monkey bars and recess, then we are moved to the bigger kid’s part of the school.  We master middle school or grammar school and lo and behold, we become High School Freshman, the bottom of the totem pole.  We repeat this pattern for most of our lives.  After a while, you think we would understand, as Shelly told us, the only constant is change.

Change is a scary concept.  There are so many variables involved. Will I still be on top of my game? Will I be able to master the next step? Will I fail to meet the challenge?  In the broad picture, those things really don’t matter. What matters is that we embrace life in all of its aspects.  As the Bible tells us, everything has a season.  The only requirement is that you play the game to the best of your ability. The results are not as important as the effort.  I know, as Americans, we are taught that we win at all costs. However, as with sports, the way in which you approach the game is what matters most.  If someone strikes out to end game seven of the World Series they can be remembered as someone who weakly gave up the inevitable loss or as someone who engaged in an epic battle with a pitcher who just came out on the wrong end of the battle.

It is always the effort that matters most. I can recall vividly taking an exam that was extremely difficult.  My professor posed a question to which there was no answer.  The real test was would we stay true to his teachings and follow the approach that he taught us even if it led us to a dead end.  Some of us did. We did the work, included all of the steps and concluded that the problem could not be solved.  We received a B+ on the final for our efforts. Others panicked.  They became frustrated at the lack of concrete results and figured they were doing something wrong and were going to fail because they could not find an answer. Their grades were considerably lower.

Don’t be those guys. When the inevitable change comes, embrace it. Attack your changing circumstances with all of the techniques you have learned throughout your lifetime. Don’t judge your changed circumstances as either a reward or a punishment, just accept it and work through it. The Universe is constantly evolving.  We are citizens of this evolving Universe, so we too must evolve.  Remember As Above, So Below.  Let us not rail against the Universe, let us go with the flow and with that flow we will prosper even when it appears at first that we will not.  Realize that it is all part of God’s plan and that terrible thing that happened or the unexpected change that seems so unfair or horrible will lead us to a new place previously unimagined.