Richard Rohr says that we can learn everything we need to know from nature. He says that nature is our first bible. Yesterday, I wrote about learning impermanence through watching the seasons change. As a human being, I am a part of nature, a creature made by the creator. I can just think about how from one minute to the next I can feel completely different. One minute, I am walking around with ease and the next minute my pain flares up. I can be totally happy and at ease and the next minute mad at something or someone. In my meditation practice, I can attest to the fact that my thoughts change moment by moment. I can be totally caught up in nothingness and then the next minute thinking about a past conversation that did not go well. I can be totally focused on my breath and then distracted by an itch on my leg. Sometimes, I let that itch pass and other times, I give it a good scratch!
I slept great last night and woke up with a crazy amount of energy, so I baked muffins, chopped, roasted, and blended ingredients for soup. I drove the kids to school, blasted through hours of work in under 2 hours and made myself presentable for a birthday lunch for my husband. After lunch, I am totally exhausted like I did not sleep well last night at all and laid on the couch for 30 min, but now I am back in action! All things are impermanent. If you don’t like how you feel right now, wait a minute, and things will change. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute or longer for some of us, but the weather will change. The weather will change!
Last night, I participated in a group and one member talked about the excitement he feels about the idea of resurrection. My mind attached to the idea of resurrection, but in a new way. What if one of the lessons of the resurrection is that all things are impermanent. If we can’t see this lesson in nature and we miss seeing this idea in action through our own lives, then maybe Jesus taught us this truth in his life and death. I understand the disciples desire to keep Jesus with them, but Jesus kept saying that he had to go away so that something better could come. How often do we hold onto things/ideas/places/people today because we love them and we are comfortable with them, but miss out on “something better.” Jesus knew that we growth never happens when we are comfortable. We grow when we are taken to our own personal edge. If you let go and accept the challenge, maybe one day you will see “something better.”
In his death, the disciples thought the whole gig was over. If anything sounds permanent, it is death. The end. Or is it? Jesus busted out of that permanent box and appeared to them in a transformed body. Resurrection tells us that even death is impermanent. At this point in the meeting, I smiled. I smiled knowing that if I can see death as impermanent, then everything else is free to come and go as well.
Amber Mattingly 