Ch..ch…changin’
Wow. Two weeks since the last post. A lot’s been going on recently. Andras left Chicago, I kicked out my dissertation proposal (yes, out of order…I’m not done with special fields yet), choir’s up and running, and today in Chicago, fall arrived. Actually, with howling winds and a dramatic drop in temperature, it rampaged in. And away we go. Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving and I’ll wonder where the fall went.
But in all of this flurry of things, I’ve been looking for solace in the steadiness, or maybe steadfastness, of some things that never seem to change. Nothing is ever static, obviously, unless it’s not animate. But, since I’ve been fairly drama-free lately (and I have no problem with that), I’ve been able to stand as the outsider and look in to other’s life issues…and begin to see that they’re cyclical. We’re happy then we’re sad. We love and then we don’t…and then we do again. We’re excited and then depressed. And when we think we’ve had enough of something, either good or bad, that something changes…but in predictable ways. I’ve been re-fascinated by the cyclical ways in which we work even when we know it and we know what’s coming. We are so predictable and yet never really seem to learn or to let go.
Yesterday I was at the Alpha Sigma Nu induction…finally, the Jesuits thought I was honorable enough to pay them $75 to wear a medallion at graduation…what can I say…it was a vendetta from my Marquette days. Anyway, the speaker reminded me of a quote from one of the Jesuit martyrs that I think is interesting. He said:
We are not human beings looking for a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings embedded in a human experience.
For some reason, it really spoke to me yesterday, especially in the light of all of these cycles I’ve been watching: some of self-destruction, some of loss, some of finding joy, some searching for love. I think de Chardin is right. The spiritual side of us, that which cannot be seen by observing us in our physical presence, is why we do what we do. If it were all rational and logical, we’d never choose to repeat some of the things we do.
So I guess it’s funny that in all of these changes I see happening so rapidly, that it’s really just a coming around the mountain again. In fact, I’ve probably written about this very thing already…several times.
We never really change. We are the steady in a context that moves around us and carries us with it. We respond. But do we change?