Where is Permanence in Times of Change

Are you in a season of change? Has your calendar shifted or been completely turned upside down?

Thoughts on the stability of mountains today and discovering permanence in times of change...

“What a blessing,” a silver-haired man with shoulder-length hair says in response to my morning greetings as my dog Mollie and I scramble up the rocky incline of the Ridgeline Trail of South Mountain. Dressed completely in black, including beanie and gloves, he is hard to see in the pre-dawn morning, but I catch a glimpse of white teeth at his grateful smile to be outside, even in the forty-degree chill.

Still thirty minutes to sunrise, I can see the silhouettes of hikers and runners on the opposite ridgeline, some with headlamps like beacons under the answering light of Jupiter and Venus in the southeastern sky. At the top of a rise, I settle on a large boulder as birds begin their daily welcome with chirps and trills that bend low before rising to a morning crescendo. I feed Mollie bits of bagel before she abandons food to investigate a pile of scat under a nearby creosote bush.

As the trail warms to gray, I see outlines of scorpionweed, brittlebush, fiddleneck, and barrel cactus. But more than the plants, the increasing light reveals the surrounding mountains: Camelback to the immediate north, the Superstitions to the east and the San Tans to the south. If I could climb higher, I would see the Estrellas off in the west.

Not one for using hand-held navigational devices, the mountains serve as immovable markers when I am out on desert trails—earth-bound satellites, if you will, that help triangulate my position.

The mountains remind me of permanence in the ever-changing landscape of my calendar, including a change of career for my husband and my agreement to watch a preemie granddaughter two days a week. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is credited as saying the only thing constant is change and after five decades of living, I would agree. It seems just as I get things figured out, a shift happens, and life changes.

You Know This is True

You also know this is true. Surprisingly, it is the small things that often spark the biggest adjustments—whether the addition of baseball practice to the family schedule for your ten-year-old or the decision to go to the gym two mornings a week to keep that New Year’s resolution.

The one change has a ripple effect that moves other things on the calendar. Suddenly you must figure out how to manage dinner when the baseball practice is at 5:30 pm or you find yourself wondering if you really want to set the alarm ahead one hour to exercise.

Change can be challenging.

The mountains speak of the solidity and stability of the Creator of those landmarks, that even if those mountains would tremble and tumble into the sea, God remains a constant help in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1-2).

Or in times of change.I find my heart agreeing with the silver-haired hiker—what a blessing.

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This post recently appeared in the Ahwatukee Foothills News, The SanTan Sun News, and the East Valley Tribune.