Recently, an acquaintance of mine proudly thrust their phone in front of me to display photos of their brand new granddaughter — a six-pound bundle born three weeks early, her eyes closed and face peaceful.
I sighed with wonder at this precious gift, and with aching recognition of the change my own daughters, now almost a year and a half old, have already experienced. My twins were as small as this just-arrived-Earthside baby not so long ago — smaller, actually. My body retains the tender memory of cradling a baby in each arm, in awe of their strength and their fragility.
Now, they are tearing around the house on their powerful little legs, climbing on furniture like they’re preparing to scale the enormous rock formations down the road, mouths full of teeth as they chatter away, even occasionally using words I can understand.
This experience of change aches with the astonishing beauty of life doing what life wants to do: to flourish and grow. My little ones reach out to touch the world with curiosity and wonder, and my spirit does somersaults seeing the way they welcome life with such unabashed delight.
At the same time, this journey aches with the knowledge that not so long from now, these two beautiful beings will fly away. And of course, embracing life with abandon also means welcoming the wrenching truth that life is terribly fragile. Risk is inherent to love — we have tender skin in the game.
Life is all of these things, all at once: flourishing and finite, as laden with loss as it is luminous. Life is change, and change is inevitable and ever-unfolding, an awesome power that shapes and shifts our world.
The satiated caterpillar takes on the chrysalis, not knowing what awaits her on the other side. She emerges transformed, gifted with spectacular wings, yet ever so delicate. The vulnerability of the butterfly is her beauty. Her acquiescence to change is her power.
I have been contemplating my relationship with change as a form of holy work in the world. While change cannot be controlled, it can, as Octavia Butler famously put it, be shaped. To put it simply, change is a spiritual practice.
We can choose to savor every moment of wondrous encounter with the change unfolding right before our eyes. We can work with such change by practicing curiosity, gratitude, and awe for the new life, new relationships, and new movements which change yields. We can welcome change as an unexpected houseguest, trusting it bears yet unknown gifts.
We can also choose to engage with change by grieving the losses which change painfully provokes: Death, ruptured relationships, violence, a world reeling from the effects of a used and abused climate. Lament, too, is spiritual work. Honoring life’s many losses keeps us connected to one another and our highest selves.
To acquiesce to change’s inevitability is not to rubber stamp its effects. Rather, it is to recognize that change can be shaped in myriad directions. The movements in the world toward chaos can be interrupted, reoriented, and shifted toward flourishing.
Change as a spiritual practice is about discerning what transformative work the Spirit of God is doing in our hearts and in the world around us, and aligning ourselves with that change with courage and compassion toward ourselves and others. Said another way: shaping change is about noticing Love trying to get our attention, and moving toward Love to the best of our energies.
Metanoia: change of mind
In the original Greek of the New Testament, the word typically (and in my opinion poorly) translated in English as “repent,” is metanoia. This word is more accurately rendered “change of mind” (meta = change; noia = thought). Rather than a one and done moment of repentance, the concept conveys an ongoing practice of change — a continual commitment toward openheartedness, wonder, and humility, that our minds might be changed as we make our way through the world. This is an invitation to a dynamic relationship with change, where each day presents opportunities to change our mind about people, beliefs, or our circumstances.
Metanoia is etymologically related to metamorphosis — literally, to change shape or form. As the emergent wings of the butterfly are a sign of the caterpillar’s cooperation with the natural order, when we are in healthy relationship with change, we recognize a higher good acting upon our very nature to alter our form of being in the world and we cooperate with that power in ways that reveal the beauty within us.
We live within the universal experience of change’s constancy. Our spiritual work is learning to work with the change that is ever acting upon us in ways that honor our own dignity, and that of the human and natural communities around us.
My children will never again be 4lbs 9oz and 4lbs 13oz. They’ve broken through that chrysalis and there is no fitting their marvelous wings inside it again. To attempt to fit them into an earlier form of being would not only be impossible, it would be cruel, because they have changed. It is mine to practice change alongside them by delighting in their development, grieving the many goodbyes along the way to their smaller selves, as together we welcome the change they have yet to experience — and the change they will be part of shaping in the world.
Thanks for reading! I would love to hear from you about what resonated with you from this essay. How do you practice change? What delight does this practice yield? What griefs does it entail?