I was walking along the South Platte River today, a spiritual practice to which I’m returning some two years after a move took me away from the riverside trail I walked almost daily during the early days of pandemic lockdowns.
That vital and sustaining practice kept me going through the turbulent changes taking place in the world, as I struggled to spiritually and mentally stay afloat. My strolls along the water’s edge were a saving grace. As I enter a new season of transition, I sense the water welcoming me back.
The Platte was uncharacteristically boisterous this morning — the gift of abundant rains, a rare thing in Colorado. It’s a soul-calming scene: swaying prairie grasses in every shade of green adorn the shoreline as thirsty trees drink deeply of the river’s wealth.
Watching the moving water, I felt invited to let Change flow through me.
I often think of God as Change — a metaphor I borrow from the Afrofuturist science fiction of Octavia Butler, who writes in her novel Parable of the Sower:
All that you touch you Change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.
I’ve come to believe that change-making is the work of God. Our work is learn to work with, rather than flee from, the God who is Change. Which is challenging. Because change, as they say, is hard. Learning to face — and even shape — change is the work of a lifetime, requiring courage and commitment. And, in my experience, community can be an immense support in choosing and sustaining relationship with Change.
I’m reminded of one of my favorite practices in the Episcopal Church: the renewal of baptismal vows. A few times a year, the gathered people of God recommit themselves to:
continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers;
persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord;
proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ;
seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself;
and to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.1
Together, we renew our commitment to Change — within ourselves and in the world around us — because change is a spiritual practice.
And so, this morning, turning upstream to witness the water rushing toward me, I extended my arms:
Welcome, Change.
You are welcome to do your work in me.
However gentle or rough your current, may I stand in your flow and be shaped by you. Grow my courage.
Keep me present and alert to receive the gifts you bear, in all their surprising and mysterious forms. Especially the gifts that come from facing and being shaped by grief and suffering.
Teach me to drink deeply of the wisdom you so generously share. Help me to practice gratitude toward the ancestors who came before me. May I be shaped by the best of who they were, while learning from their mistakes.
Grant that I might see all the change flowing through me as grace. A river of possibilities for healing, growth and transformation.
And then, turning downstream, I opened my hands:
Thank you, Change.
I am letting go of those stories I have told myself that are too small for me now. The ones that have left me frightened or comparing myself to others. I am ready for more expansive ways of being in the world.
I am releasing the resentments that are keeping me bound and weighted down, unable to accept people as they are. I accept that just as I have the capacity to be shaped by change, so do my neighbors.
I acknowledge that I am not in control. I am ready to go with the flow.
May it be so.
Amen.
I would love to hear from you!
How do you practice change? Are there places you go that help you welcome change? How can you welcome change this week?
These promises come from the Book of Common Prayer, p. 304. The BCP gives Episcopalians a common language and practice of prayer in worship, as community and for individual devotions.