By ALICIA WOODWARD, guest columnist
Winter allows us to witness the miracle of change in real time. Last week, our cove was covered with a sheet of ice. Yesterday, a caldron of steam brewed and hovered over thick, gray slush. Today, ducks swim and splash in crystal clear water. It’s fascinating to watch the lake transform from liquid to gas to solid and back again.
The fact is, everything with mass and weight is made of matter, and all matter can change. Stars and planets, butterflies and birds, rocks and rivers, you and I are all made of matter. Which means we all have the ability to change (a little or a lot) for the better.
Winston Churchill said, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
Literature is filled with dynamic characters who undergo a positive transformation. The Beast, the Grinch, Daddy Warbucks and everyone off to see the Wizard are just a few well-known characters who, by the end of the story, change for the better.
One of my favorite childhood novels is “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A sour little girl named Mary is sent to live in a sad and lonely place. As she tends a neglected garden, joy blossoms in her own heart and in everyone’s around her.
History is marked by people whose change of heart changed the world. Rosa Parks bravely changed her mind about sitting in the back of the bus. The Apostle Paul saw the light on the road to Damascus. Abraham Lincoln’s views on the evils of slavery evolved.
Call it flip-flopping, but George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
Ordinary people can change, too. Homeboy Industries is the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. Every year it helps thousands of former gang members become valuable citizens. Founder Father Gregory Joseph Boyle expressed the ability to help people change their lives by quoting poet Galway Kinnell, “Sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.”
Some may say a leopard doesn’t change its spots. Certainly, we must be wise in our interactions with others, but we should always leave the door open for change. We can start by looking for the loveliness in ourselves and in others. We can break our own self-defeating and hurtful habits. We can have hope that the people we care about can and will do the same.
Past injustices, political division, discouraging headlines, personal struggles, fear and pure stubbornness can make us as cold as ice. Maybe the lake’s dramatic transformation is nature’s way of reminding us to let our hearts melt a little, show grace, and have faith that we can continuously learn, grow and change into the best version of ourselves.
Alicia Woodward and her husband are empty-nesters who live on Sweetwater Lake in Brown County. She taught middle school literature and language arts for more than 25 years and writes a weekly blog, The Simple Swan, inspired by the wisdom, beauty and simplicity of nature. Subscribe at thesimpleswan.com. She can be reached at [email protected].
