Yer Awesome, Don't Ever Change!

When I saw the TV ad today for a new comedy called Never Change on Hulu where the setting is high school, I suddenly recalled end of school yearbook signings. Remember how we all seemed to write some version of don’t ever change? All these years later, I’m considering what we meant. Change is inevitable – change is what we can count on. What did we mean by it? Is that innocent adolescent longing precious or foolish?

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Yer Awesome, Don’t Ever Change

Were I not in the dusty Southwest, far from my dusty high school yearbooks in our Illinois basement, I would snap photos of autographed pages for you. (Not all would be shared since there were plenty of naughty notes.) As I recall, the most common sentiment was STAY THE SAME!

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Was this adolescent plea merely a compliment? Like, omg you’re so frackin great the way you are, don’t become an awful boring adult.

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Were we just reflecting our culture’s obsession with youth and fear of aging? The possibilities are compelling.

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Obviously we slowly change as evidenced by evolution. But don’t we need to pick up the pace? In this post-nuclear age, we have to wonder, can we as a people of earth truly change enough to prevent our extinction?

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I consider what the senior-in-high-school me thought about transformation. I can sort of summon that early 1980s headspace when I penned essays for college admission and scholarships. Those were creative writing attempts to dazzle committee members about my mad potential for success.

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I wasn’t well-read, but I was at the top of my class and played a lead in our high school musical so I recall quoting lyrics from “Fame”: …I’m gonna live forever…you ain’t seen the best of me yet, etc. Good lord. I’m a dreamer, and my inflated teen self imagined she’d succeed wildly with hard work because she cracked the code by staying the same.

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Flash forward to the winter of my college freshman year when death came near with Crohn’s disease. Staying the same was impossible, and life’s fragility suggested I sure wasn’t gonna live forever.

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Positive thinking, hard work and six-pack abs would not insulate me from the humble realities of daily pathology. (But I wish I had known chronic illness would eventually bring out the best of me yet!)

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As I grew into aduthood, I began to see how suffering is a prime motivator for change. American psychologist and Buddhist teacher, Jack Kornfield wrote in Bringing Home the Dharma:

“There are two kinds of suffering—the suffering we run from because we are unwilling to face the truth of life, and the suffering that comes when we’re willing to stop running from the sorrows and difficulties of the world. The second kind of suffering will lead you to freedom.”

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I am here for that path to sweet freedom!

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Upward mobility was on my mind more than thoughts of change in the first half of my life. Cynicism replaced youthful optimism and innocence. Was don’t ever change a wise forewarning? In teenspeak, did it translate to may your wonder, wildness, and freedom keep you optimistic, innocent, and fresh? Did we somehow know everything was about to change as we scribbled in so many yearbooks?

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CHANGE. It proves difficult even with our purest intentions and deep desire. There was a period of time I equated the power to change with a made up mind centered in God. I heard Iyanla VanZant once tell an interviewer: “A child of God with a made up mind is a powerful thing.” I felt her words become etched on my heart. They didn’t budge for years. But we change.

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Reality unfolds, and we change. Loss comes, and we change. When you consider how difficult it is to change, do you ever blame our fallen nature or point to the Book of Genesis? Sometimes on my own journey, God feels like the energy of change.

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When the former etched message on my heart begin to shift, I sensed a power stronger than a made up mind. The eyes of my soul saw a daughter of God who can CHANGE her mind!

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A mind permeable and cooperative with its heart and body? A mind ready to rest in divine dominion? Oooh, daddy. Powerful.

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Walking this mystical path in a spirit of unknowing opens me to more change.

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A few months ago I discovered the work of Carolyn Myss and was drawn to the directness of her teaching style. It agrees with me after so many years of well meaning Evangelical leaders to whom I cannot relate. Her soulful eco-bio-spiritual instruction stirs and surprises me as it illuminates the beauty of the impersonal laws of nature sustaining us.

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What is in one is in the whole. God as law, light, and love. Transformation is possible and mostly invisible, but it demands maturity. Myss doesn’t sugarcoat; this is work for the brave (translation: I feel busted in every workshop session in the BEST butt-kicking way). This is mystical work for truthtellers.

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Am I slow to heal because I subconsciously fear the accountability maturity demands? Do I fear rejection from my tribe and loneliness? DON’T EVER CHANGE? Should we be content with how childish, lazy, and petty we have become as a culture with our short attention spans and need for constant entertainment? Are we expecting a hero to swoop in to set all things straight while we remain the same?

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I don’t know, but I’m looking in the mirror. Right where I am, I notice how my brain’s desire for safety often overrides my soul’s desire for change. I notice how many times I have betrayed my soul, telling myself lies. A bloated ego likes to remind me I’m on my own and how pathetic it is to have so many needs.

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But my heart opens to truth. My soul knows the strength of a burden shared! Knows the sacredness of prayer. We are truly never alone in our tender desire to change. We have Grace to seek. There’s a fountain with Living Water. Courage is a prayer away!

I’m signing your yearbook, earth school classmate…

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You’re awesome! Go change with the fullness and weirdness of your experiences. Feel free to change imperfectly! Keep growing in faith by searching your soul and going beyond yourself.

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Love and strawberries,

-michele

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