Constancy
“But if
nature teaches us anything, it's that fighting will do nothing to
prevent the passage of time, the turning of the seasons. It might be
a long, long time coming, as Sam Cooke so gorgeously sang, but change
in gonna come.”
Margaret
Renkl (“A Change Is Gonna Come,” New York Times Opinion Page,
September 1, 2019)
Margaret Renkl is a
writer who lives in Nashville, TN. She writes about the natural
world. The article above was sent to me by my friend, Rebecca, and I recognized a kindred spirit when I read it. She writes about
chipmunks and humming birds, and squirrels; about changing seasons
and wilting flowers. Here's a luscious sentence from her article
cited above: “The last of the milky magnolia petals are going
brown now, and the bees are working the remaining pollen with all the
focus of a lonely soul at a dive bar's last call.” I think I
seen that identical bee with big sacks of pollen hanging off its back
legs. The season is indeed changing even though temperatures will
remain in the 90's here every day this week.
The great gift of nature
is its constancy—it is predictable. The seasons reliably
change, the birds always nest and lay their eggs in the spring,
mosquitoes are thickest in summer, and hummingbirds will fight like
rabid dogs over a feeder that no one gets to drink from because it is
too well defended. We know for sure that autumn will arrive
eventually, and everyone in the deep south is leaning toward it with
all their might. But we cannot hurry the seasons any more than we can
push hurricane Dorian away from our east coast. When it comes to
nature, we just have to take it as it comes.
Much of the rest of life
is like that too. We have all tried to rush something, or to stop
something from happening, and have reaped the consequences of that
futile attempt. Things do change, that's guaranteed, but in their
own good time. Living long will teach you patience—or maybe not.
Either way, we cannot push the river, even if it's polluted. We can,
however, clean it up. Just like waiting for autumn, that takes time
and patience. I remember helping with several Eagle Scout projects
involving the clean-up of public parks and nature trails—it took a
long, long time—way longer than anyone wanted or could have
predicted. But eventually, we got the job done.
When we're feeling
defeated or hopeless, we need to remember the certainty that a change
is coming, as surely as winter follows autumn. We must strap on our
work belts and get ready. A couple of good role models for this are
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, who have now been married longer than I've
been alive. They have witnessed many, many changes without losing
sight of their purpose in the world. As this season turns, they are
back at Habitat for Humanity, building houses. They're just as
constant as the birds and the bees. You can depend on that.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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