Change

Change.

 I like to keep a matted print of Mt. Saint Helen and Spirit Lake at home to remind me that everything changes. Even great snow-covered mountains, and lakes that seemed at the time unchangeable. On May 18, 1980 with an explosion the equivalent of 24 megatons of thermal energy and an estimated 3.7 billion cubic yards of superheated mud (pyroclast) sliding down its fractured side…60,000 trees were flattened as a result of the pressure of the blast.…the Mountain was forever changed and the Lake lost…most of it disappearing into what is now a mudflat. Fifty-seven lives were lost...250 homes buried or burned, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railways, and 185 miles of highway were destroyed. A veritable domino effect of change.

Significant change affects us much the same. Think back to the last earth-shattering change in your life. We stand at first uncomprehending…disbelieving. Paralyzed. Unable to move.

Slowly we survey the damage. Move gingerly. Acknowledging we have survived. Blinking we scan the area around us for others who have survived, as well. 

Are you a survivor too?

Day by day we work to assimilate the latest change into the landscapes of our lives...not easy picking through the pieces. Digging several feet through the muck...then the rains come again...and make no mistake...they always do...

But then, much like Mt. St Helen…one day we see tiny green sprigs and even tinier flowers beginning to fill in the bleak landscape. Life…creeping back in amidst the devastation.

No...not the same mountainside...it will never again be the same mountain again ..not the same lake. 

A new landscape...and with it a new beginning.