| SEPTEMBER 2, 2011 -- The seasons are about to change again as we enter into the fall or harvest time. Lets explore change. Everything comes to an end, eventually and such events trigger much angst and worry. However, you cannot truly experience a new beginning, until you have dealt with the ending that preceded it. Everything in this world has one thing in common, it all had a beginning and it will all come to an end.
Within the experience of a human lifetime, we have innumerable beginnings and endings. Every breath, every activity, every relationship has a beginning and an end.l Each beginning is a type of birth and each ending a type of death. Certainly there is much that is good and true within our social customs. Yet often our conventional wisdom contains only half-truths. Good as it is that we celebrate beginnings, endings also need to be honored and perhaps even celebrated. We can truly experience a new beginning only when we have fully dealt with the ending that preceded it, otherwise we simply carry the unfinished business of the past into the future.
Endings are not failures. To understand the importance of an ending is to discount its impact on our life. When we see an ending as an absolute finality, rather than the beginning of a transition process we may be taking it too seriously. We should honor endings but not worship them. To honor an ending is to acknowledge the importance that it had on our life and its impact. It is to honor the divine wisdom and order that govern every aspect of our life if we but have eyes to see it. |
