Every Day is a New Beginning

From the Teachings of Buddha: Blossoms come about because of a series of conditions that lead up to their blooming.  Leaves are blown away because a series of conditions lead up to it.  Blossoms do not appear independently, nor does a leaf fall of itself, out of its season.  So everything has its coming forth and passing away; nothing can be independent without any change.  It is the everlasting and unchanging rule of this world that everything is created by a series of causes and conditions and everything disappears by the same rule; everything changes, nothing remains constant.

Last year at about this time, I visited my grandmother in the assisted living facility where she lives in Colorado.   She had Alzheimer’s -…every day, sometimes every moment was a new beginning for her. 

I read a book recently in which the author noted that before his aunt passed she had Alzheimer’s, but that when he would visit her she would be present and lucid- he stated this was because that was what he expected.   This was part of his belief that what we perceive to be reality is entirely created by what we think or expect.  While I personally hold this belief to be true to some extent, I know that- especially after visiting my Grandmother in her final year- this is certainly not a universal truth.  Nobody expects the changes in personality and behavior that come about from Alzheimer’s.  Yes, of course, we have some idea because of the research and what we read of other’s experiences with the disease, but I do not believe that my Grandmothers mind was in the state it was in, or that she behaved as she did because she, or my mother, or anyone else in our family for that matter “expected” that she would become delusional, hallucinate, and forget large pieces of her life and experience.  She would become quite confused, and there were nights when my mother got almost no sleep due to the calls either from Grandma, or from the facility where she lived.  While we all know that at some point there is the likelihood that children will become the caretakers of their parents, the level of confusion and vulnerability is not something that I believe is often anticipated, much less present because it is expected.

In the movie, “the Notebook”, one of the main characters, Ally, spends the majority of the movie listening to what seems to her to be a wonderful and at times slightly familiar story; she is present in the moment for only a few minutes- then suddenly becomes terrified because all at once she does not know who she is, and is in suddenly unfamiliar surroundings.

The experiences of my Grandmother and others with severe memory loss painfully illustrate the extreme of what all of us feel- when it’s time to venture into the unknown, when we don’t know what is going to happen, we get scared.

The future is unknown. We are all afraid of the unknown, its human nature.  Unlike Alzheimer’s patients who not only do not know what the future holds, but have ‘lost’ their past (or portions of it), most of us have the benefit of being able to draw on our experiences for strength and a certainty of sorts.

We run into problems, however, when we hold on to that past because it is known, because it is familiar, and refuse to let go and change. It feels very good right here, thank you very much! Cycles of abuse and violence are so hard to break because those who are involved hold on to what is familiar; they perpetuate the cycle because it ‘feels like home’.

Change is the thing that we simultaneously crave the most and also fear the most.  Most of our fear comes from personal insecurity.  If things change, where will I fit in?  What if I don’t like the new way?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “All things must change to something new- something strange”.
Change is strange.  We are creatures of habit. Have any doubt about this? When you put on your shoes tomorrow, try putting on the left first, instead of the right- or sleeping on the other side of the bed tonight, or changing some other seemingly minor pattern of your daily life.  It will probably feel like something is “off”- you may not even be able to sleep if you are not on the side of the bed you usually sleep on.  A habit can be created in a relatively short period of time- sometimes a matter of days or weeks, but it can take YEARS to break one!  Of course anything new is going to feel strange!

James Baldwin said that “Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.”

Change makes you vulnerable.  The “old life” and the safety it contained, has been set aside or put to the past, and the safety of the new life is not established.  The transition between the two feels threatening and scary.

Change means movement, and if we take a spiritual lesson from the physical world, what does movement create? Friction.  Change is not something that is meant to be convenient.
Change creates friction and friction creates change. 

But Change is constant and a necessary part of life.  We can’t control change, and if we try to, we end up with less than stellar results. Take crop rotation as an example. I’m not just talking about the acres and acres of corn and soybeans that you see around here-- anyone who has had a vegetable garden for any period of time understands the importance of crop rotation.  In 12 Lessons on life I learned from my garden, the author explains, “If, year after year you plant the same vegetables in the same place and don’t rotate your crops, your harvest will prove to you the error of your ways.  Disease will abound, nutrients once there will have been exhausted by past crops, and the fruits of your labor will be shadows of those past.” if you keep planting in the same spot, year after year, you will stop growing. 

Rain falls, winds blow, plants bloom, leaves mature and are blown away.  This is the way of the world.
We can’t control change. It WILL happen.

As we welcome the new we must surrender the old- this is the hardest thing for some to do.   Some of us have a hard enough time cleaning out closets and drawers or sorting papers; much less letting go of past pain or even fondness.  It is tempting to try to hold on to what was, even after it is gone, but things are meant to change, and without endings there would be no beginnings.  Accept appropriate endings.

One of the stories in the Teachings of Buddha is about a man on a long journey who came to a river.   He said to himself, “this side of the river is very difficult and dangerous to walk on, and the other side seems easier and safer, but how shall I get across?”  So he built a raft out of branches and reeds and safely crossed the river.  Then he thought to himself: “this raft has been very useful to me in crossing the river; I will not abandon it to rot on the bank, but will carry it along with me.”  And thus he voluntarily assumed an unnecessary burden. 

In order to grow and to change, we must let go of things, even good things, once they are no longer useful or beneficial in our lives.

It is possible to excuse away anything, to find an excuse for anything, to justify anything.  When I worked in an outpatient clinic, one of the nurses was talking about how she had always wanted to go to medical school and become a physician.  When asked why she didn’t, she explained that she had spent so much of her life getting to where she was, that if she were to begin to pursue a medical degree she would be nearly 50 by the time she would be able to practice medicine.  One of the resident physicians asked her, “How old will you be in that time if you DON’T do it?”
The nurse had used this as an excuse for so long that until that moment she had not seen that it was just an excuse.  The real reason she didn’t start back to school was because she was scared.  She hadn’t been to a college class in nearly 20 years and would possibly be one of the older students in her classes.  She would have no idea what to expect.  She was a successful nurse; if she were to start something new, there was the chance she could fail.  Fear of failure is a huge block in our ability to even try to change.

One of the easiest things to do when you think about change is to worry.  Worry helps us make up excuses and reasons not to start something new.  The problem is that the things you worry about aren’t going to be the things that decide success or failure. The things that will are the things that come out of the blue and blindside you on some mild May afternoon.  And no matter how much you worry, change will happen.  I doubt there are too many tulips that worry that they will bloom in the spring.  One of my favorite quotes is from Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune:
 “Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.”

It is said that you can’t step in the same river twice.  Sure, you can give the river a name, but it is not the same water which flows through it.  It takes different twists and turns, new stones and sand are carried along, changing the shape and the depth; other creatures (beavers, humans) alter the flow of the water.  In the same way, you are not the same person from day to day.  You have had experiences that have shaped you.  Old cells have died off and been replaced by new ones.  The past no longer exists, except as memories stored somewhere in our consciousness- and those, as we know, are not permanent by far.

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it.  Action has magic, grace, and power in it”, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe tells us. When we are willing to be beginners, the world is filled with adventure.  Tillie Olsen puts it as, “unused capacities atrophy, cease to be.”

Dr. Seuss wrote a wonderful book called “Oh, the Places You’ll Go”.  In it, he describes a place he calls “a most useless place”- it’s “the waiting place”.  It is “for people just waiting.  Waiting for a train to go, or a bus to come or a plane to go, or the mail to come, or the rain to go, or the phone to ring, or the snow to go, or waiting around for a Yes or No, or waiting for their hair to grow.  Everyone is just waiting.”  They are “waiting for the fish to bite, or waiting for wind to fly a kite, or waiting around for Friday night, or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake, or a pot to boil, or a better break, or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants, or a wig with curls, or another chance.  Everyone is just waiting.”

Don’t get stuck in “the waiting place”.  If you are in the waiting place, it’s time to get out.  Tomorrow is a new beginning.  “You have brains in your head and feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself any direction you choose.”  It will be scary and uncomfortable, especially if you have been in the waiting place for a very long time.  But Congratulations!! Today is your day! Tell yourself this every day- when you brush your hair, while you brush your teeth- today is your day- not because it’s a graduation, not because it’s your birthday, not because it’s a new year- because it’s Thursday, or because it is the 5^th of the month, or because the sun came out.  You don’t have to wait for a reason to start something new, to make that change.

If you’ve never heard of a “Bucket list”, it’s a list of things that you want to do before you “kick the bucket”.  Most people have one of these, either written or mental; some people know exactly what is on theirs, to others it’s a mess of “things I’d like to do someday”.   Today I encourage you start toward completing one thing on it. Always wanted to go to Japan? Start by renewing your passport that you haven’t used since college- or applying for your first one.  Sign up for that class in jewelry making.  Find someone to give you those guitar lessons.  The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

New Year’s resolutions tend to be broken fairly quickly, usually within a matter of weeks or months.  So forget  about waiting for the so-called resolutions.  Tomorrow is a new day, a new beginning- start something new.  And the next day too.  Keep making each day the new beginning that it is and don’t allow yourself to fall into the habit of NO CHANGE. 

You don’t have to do it alone.  We are all here to help each other take those uncertain steps into the unknown, those first steps of that thousand mile journey.  We hold each other in body and in spirit so that no one is ever alone to face those things that can scare you right out of your pants.

This past spring, I attended a beautiful building dedication, here in this room.  The excitement and fellowship I saw demonstrated that day showed me that not only have you as a Fellowship grown through change, but you continue to grow.  May you continue to grow together, to embrace and nurture change.

May it be so.

.

Closing words:

Mark Twain said: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

 Originally delivered 2009 at the Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence, modified and delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Topeka