Speaking in generalities, while the drastic change in lifestyle and worldview accompanying a first pregnancy may come for a mother at the moment she realizes that she is pregnant, for the father it may not come until he first holds the newborn life in his arms. In either instance, lives are suddenly and considerably changed, never to fully return as they were before. Of course, this can be enough to scare just about anyone away from the concept of parenthood. All the same, we face unrecognized changes daily. We are often unaware, no matter how much Hollywood and the Sci-Fi channel try to remind us, of how our deliberate actions can cause dramatic changes in the “fabric” of history—our own, and that of others.
The word “yes”—whether to a marriage proposal or to the news that one will be the mother of the Savior of the world—is enough to change not only a person, but the world… forever. The unexpected and irreversible reality of the death of a loved one… or just as well the washing in the waters of baptism, inagurating one forever into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; or likewise, the indelible mark left on the soul of one ordained to the priesthood… life changes at a sleight of hand, the pronouncement of a few words, the shifting of one’s eyes, or even the “drop of a hat.”
There is a clever line in Relient K’s song “I Celebrate the Day” that asks the question of the newborn Savior:
And the first breath
that left your lips,
did you know that it
would change this world forever?
What, can you imagine, the air must have tasted like that crisp Bethlehem night when the infant Jesus drew his first breath—a breath that in itself would have been sufficient to save all mankind from sin and death? It may have reminded him of that first breath of God over the formless waste, the vast coldness of the empty universe, bringing forth life in abundance… that now, aeons later would bring forth a renewing life for all creatures.
The early Church struggled for some time over the question of how God could “suffer”—that is, change—in the humanity of Jesus Christ—if in reality he is God, eternal and unchanging, how can it be that the Son of God, second person of the Holy Trinity, might suffer upon a cross, or even enter the ever-changing world? It ought to seem rather appropriate to us folk that the word ‘change’ is associated with suffering. Suffering implies for us passivity, the reception of a burden, a pain, a trouble, a worry, a care. And the changes in our lives are, perhaps more often than we would prefer, seemingly foisted upon us. We may comfort ourselves by saying “it is the will of God” or we may get angry and bitter, assuming it is the fault of another, or even ourselves, but either way, we can easily see ourselves as powerless subjects of the willing of God, nature and mankind.
In one fell swoop we can declare that we have unwittingly fallen in love with someone while all the same demanding that marriage must be between two who freely choose to love one another. Well, who’s in charge, then? It would seem, then, that marriage is just about two people who are subject to the same kind of change that they didn’t even freely will in the first place! Of course, on that interpretation, marriage can just as easily end when, unwillingly, people fall out of love. There must be some element of willing in the life-changing events of our lives, otherwise, we are sad pawns, we are witless puppets. But, how?
Sometimes life changing moments, foisted or not, are sufficient to change our behavior… more than a few uncommitted men have been turned from a life of immaturity or pleasure seeking by the birth of a child… more than a few have embraced a forgotten faith when they realized that something important was at stake. “There are no atheists in a foxhole” they say—and if a foxhole is not a world of constant change, I don’t know what is. Changes can be accepted. There is always the Serenity Prayer:
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The courage to change the things I can.
And the wisdom to know the difference.
It would seem, then, that these foisted, unwilled, often forced changes do have the ability to bring out the best in us. They ask us to make a decision, to act freely. Often they prompt us to make drastic changes of our own. Our culture celebrates those who triumph in the face of insurmountable adversity, and rightly so. Limbs cut off, speech impediments, language difficulties, mobility lost to illness, disabilities are constantly being overcome and changed into advantages. Yet we mourn what is lost by change, or what never was and never could be despite our best and strongest willing.
Our can-do America tells us that things can be changed—not too long ago, if you remember, an entire presidential campaign was run based on the word change—and certainly they can. We seem to celebrate change publically, despite fear of it in our own lives. Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical Spe salvi (Saved by Hope), wrote that the person who lives by true Christian hope, lives differently. The grief, the remorse, even the regret, at the loss of what was once but now never will be again can never be greater than the joy and excitement produced by the promise of a new life, a different life… the hope that life can be different, that things can be done better… that things can change, that people can change, that the world, indeed, can and has changed in the birth of Jesus Christ, eternal Son of the eternal Father, changing, turning, drawing, all things to himself.
