Change Is the Only Constant

Change Is the Only Constant

We are not who we were yesterday,
nor yet what we shall be tomorrow.
Our world shifts, and we shift,
every aspect of our being in transition
from subatomic particles to our character.
Today you felt a shift in your feelings
for someone you have gotten close to—
too soon to know just what happened
or how it will sort itself out.
The fact that some deep stuff is involved
becomes obvious when you sense that
you have to reach for the word “Love”
to talk about it, though love is not
some moment or decision or fixed thing either.

Love grows and develops, it is many-sided
and many-layered, you cannot define it.
You can know it by certain distinguishing marks,
so to speak, and by its fruits.
Love will anchor you when you need to be held fast
and uproot you when you need to let go,
yet it will always serve life,
even when it embraces death.
Love will increase your compassion,
your willingness to understand where others come from,
what disasters, blessings, detours shaped their journey,
what scars they bear too deep to be spoken of,
and this is not just compassion for your beloved
or for those whose love carries you in their hearts—
it will be for all beings.
Love will show itself in respect: for others,
for yourself, for creation, and for your Creator—
you will want to treat all things and persons well.
Love overcomes sin and all manner of evil,
not by power but by its ability to embrace
all things and to forgive and make new beginnings possible.
Love is truthful and will not tolerate evasion, illusion,
deceit, manipulation. Love has nothing to hide.
Many passions know shame, and should, but love does not.
Love will be gentle with you but it will not coddle you;
it will hold you to account for your decisions, words, thoughts,
actions and non-actions and their consequences;
by doing so it takes you seriously
and reminds you that you matter.
It is a sad thing that we hurt those we love;
given this painful reality, remember that love itself
will not use or abuse others and love will seek
the restoration of relationship where breaks occur.
Love does not exploit, it does not make excuses,
it does not seek to justify itself, it does not blame or judge—
what it does is see clearly and makes the truth known.
Love is not cowardly, nor saccharine and sentimental;
it has a backbone and it can outlast mountains.

We do not create love, we cannot make it happen,
it is in the very fabric of the universe and is something
of the cosmic dance with the energies of God
whirling all the worlds into being,
a dance we share in. We open our hearts to love,
to the dance, to the rhythms of life,
allowing them to flow through us,
and the tides of those energies and the rhythms of that dance
come to us in times and manners we cannot control.

So as all things change in the endless interchange
of many dancers joined to the One Dancer in the One Dance,
we are changed and changing. For all that,
and for reasons known to the Dancer alone,
we are allowed to shape the dance,
to determine our part, even within the constraints
of all those givens that we cannot alter or evade.
My friend, be deliberate as you choose
which rhythm to step to and how
you shape the next figure of that dance.
By the time you take that next step,
all things will have shifted yet again,
but you are contributing to the ever-unfolding pattern.
Make beauty, make life, open your heart
to feel all things in their uniqueness and reality,
songs and sorrow alike, know them,
and a deep joy will spring up within you,
the joy of the Dancer.
Do not fear change,
choose life!

August 27, 2002
(c) by PES