October in the Adirondacks is a time of change and great beauty. Driving down the Moose River Road last Sunday, I was surrounded by golds, oranges, yellows and reds, a world in swirl of color, even the sky looked brighter. People were stopped all along the river taking pictures, trying to capture the beauty - perhaps to save it for winter, or just to remember that it was there. In October, everything changes fast - one day it’s warm and sunny and the next day you wake up to frost on the car windshield. Rain comes and goes. It’s cold, then clear. Leaves on the tree one day are on the ground the next because of a strong wind.
Change is our theme this week. Pictures capture the difference a few weeks make. (See the Facebook page or Weekly Photos on the website) A mushroom looked healthy and new in the summer, but now it’s brown with chunks eaten out of it by squirrels.
There are so many changes in our lives, children growing up and leaving home, loss of a loved one, grandchildren, moving, you can add to the list. I always thought I was someone who embraced change until my husband had our bathroom remodeled. I like my old shower curtain, and especially the old shower head. So I had to get used to something new after 30 years of having it one way. I feel like the children of Israel wandering in the desert toward the promised land who just wanted to go back to Egypt.
Joan Chittister in her book The Story of Ruth says: “A moment of change leaves [us] … at the mercy of [our] circumstances, unless [we] take it in, open to it, see it as simply another step in the unfolding of the self.” What a beautiful way to look at change, as an opportunity to grow and enrich our spiritual lives. She goes on to say: “Without faith in the God of change, we doom ourselves to the banality of the partial.”
Where do you see change happening? Do you embrace it or resist it?