Amy Sander Montanez is a writer, teacher, therapist, retreat leader, and spiritual director who attends Trinity Cathedral, Columbia. She is the winner of two 2008 Polly Bond Awards for Devotional / Inspirational Writing from Episcopal Communicators You can access an archive with her award-winning reflections on the diocesan Web site at www.edusc.org/ArchiveElectronic/.
In the Moment—One Pilgrim's Attempt to Be Present
By Amy Sander Montanez, D. Min.
Change is the answer
Now it is on the mirror in my bedroom. For twelve years it was on
the refrigerator. Before that is resided in my daytimer, where I
would reference is almost every day. It is this quote:
If you always do what you’ve always done,
You’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.
Change is the answer.
This quote first became important to me at a time when my marriage was fragile and I was trying mightily to do some things differently. Easier said than done, but worth it, for sure, and worth it over and over again. I think about this quote almost every day as my own life evolves, as my daughter and husband evolve, as my extended family changes, as clients seek to heal, in short as every thing around me keeps changing.
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As I left for my morning walk yesterday, the air was cool and the
leaves were vibrating with a gentle breeze. It was still dark, the
almost full moon was bright and high in the sky, traffic noise was
at a minimum, and other than the sound of a sprinkler going off,
there was a distinct stillness in the air. Thirty minutes later as I
made the turn to head back home, the sun was coming up and turning
the streets a shade of peach, lights were on everywhere, a few
people were sipping coffee and talking on their front porches, cars
and busses were moving through the streets, birds were calling and
dogs were barking. Clearly things had changed.
Change can be positive or negative, and it happens in all sorts of
ways. Sometimes it happens quickly, and it happens to us. We get a
job. We lose a job. We get sick. Someone we love dies unexpectedly.
We are betrayed. We inherit money. Our children get in trouble. This
type of change shocks the system, and we are forced to adjust and
adapt, to figure out some new ways of looking at things and some new
ways of behaving. Very often, people will say that even though they
wouldn’t have asked for it and they weren’t looking for it, forced
change was the best thing that ever happened to them. They needed to
change, and they wouldn’t have done it any other way. Homeostasis is
powerful, and it would have been easier to just keep being the same.
Sometimes it happens slowly over time. Step by step, we open up to
new possibilities and we embrace a new perspective. Or, slowly and
insidiously, we shut down and clam up. We don’t notice the changes
from day to day. We may be slowly finding our voice, or beginning to
use our gifts, or slowly getting sick, or passively giving up, or
quietly working for peace, or slowly starting a new group. Of course
the sun didn’t suddenly appear in the sky yesterday morning, even
though it seemed like that at first. It had been gradually coming
into view, changing the night into morning, lighting my way.
Suddenly or gradually, and sometimes even both ways, everything
changes. We can be active participants in those changes, or we can
let the changes happen to us, or both. But trying to prevent change
is usually an exercise in futility.
My mother often said to me, “Things must change.” And my father
said, “Some things never change.” The opposite of one profound truth
is another profound truth. Friendships change, marriages change,
children change, the economy changes, schools change, technology
changes…the list is infinite. I think even God changed after the
earth was flooded and he said, in essence, “I’ll never do that
again.” In our gospel lesson this past Sunday we watch Jesus change
his perspective about the Canaanite woman and his idea about who was
in and who was out. And yet, history repeats itself, the same things
that bother me today bothered me yesterday, there is a
predictability to life and tradition and history that we love and
want and need.
Why do we think, then, that the church shouldn’t change, and why
should the church change? The tension in that question is difficult
to hold and takes some effort to answer. But surely we are in the
thick of that very issue again, just like the church has been every
500 years or so. And, just like in the past, those two questions
need to be answered. What needs to change, and what needs to stay
the same? What are the roots and the foundation? What needs pruning
so new growth can be welcomed? What deep “Truths” do we hold on to
so that new “truths” can evolve? My own observation is that we fight
over “little-t” truths without looking at the “capital-T” Truths. Or
sometimes we actually disagree about the capital-T Truths.
“You’re either changing or you’re dead.” This is another quote I’ve
remembered over the years. We’re all afraid of changing. We seek
homeostasis. We cling to the familiar. AND….change is inevitable.
And necessary. Or we will be dead.
©Amy Sander Montanez, D.Min