Change

I was sitting in the car waiting for the girls to return from their shopping spree. They were into the craft shops and like most blokes I can only take just so much of dolly toilet-role holders and the like. There was no tool shop or gun shop in sight and so I was lounging back on the car seat. Being able to wind the seat back is one of the many advantages of a modern car.

Across from where I was parked, a little elderly lady was working on the garden. The house and grounds were as neat as a pin - not a blade of grass was out of place. The whole house had that lived in, loved in, look. She was indeed aged, moving very slowly and a little wobbly. Her task at the time was killing the weeds in the pathway. A brush and bucket in hand she methodically treated every intruding weed.

From out of the house came her husband, a little slower, a little less steady. He headed for the letterbox, screwed up the usual junk mail, they shared some gentle words, and then he was off for a walk. "Real affection there" I thought to myself. "Probably he's on his way to the local for a couple with his mates." It seemed the natural thing to do at that time of the day.

I mused about how long they may have lived there, what events had shaped their long life together, what sadness, what joy? Once they were young, filled with energy, lovers. Now, they walked with the same gait, "livin and lovin", waiting for God.

"Mind your business", I thought to myself. I glanced in the rear vision mirror. Still, no sign of the shoppers. Returning to my book I continued with the latest debate over whether women should be admitted as Priests to the Anglican Church. I wonder if God really cares. "He cares for those two oldies over there", I thought.

"Nothing ever changes, everything remains the same, we are what we are till the day that we die". These are the words of a song I remember from long ago. "Nothing ever changes"? We grow older, make new friends, leave old ones. The job changes sometimes, we move house, the kids grow up, we get older and wiser, see things differently. Everything changes, nothing is static, but does it really change?

I remember there was a repeated line in the song, a kind of background masking, "You are what you are till the day that you die - unless J.C. changes you." Now that's the truth. Surely that's the only real change in the changeless cycle of life.

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