On a walk today with the kids, we came across a quiet pond that had frozen over very thinly with a still-transparent layer of ice. For a while, we played at "skipping" stones across the water, trying not to break the ice while getting the stones as far as possible.At the end of it all, the smooth surface of the pond was scattered with stones of various sizes. Looking at these, I imagined the moment that would inevitably come for each when the ice beneath would melt just enough that the stone would slip through. It will almost certainly happen suddenly - even though the incremental softening of the ice will have gone on for some time beforehand.
I reflected on how our lives are so much the same. There are moments of acute change that come on us suddenly, demarcating past from future in ways that are very obvious 'features' on the landscape of our lives. Of course, all such changes come as the result of the same kind of slow, incremental preparatory steps that precede the crisis moment for the stones scattered on the pond ice, but because of the way we tend to look at our lives, they are typically perceived as moments of crisis.
All of this seems relevant, I suppose, because the last month or so has seen a "softening of the ice" around the stone of my own life. It's clear that a moment of demarcation is just around the corner.
Does the stone fear the change that is coming for it? No. After all- It's been through all of this before... more times than we can imagine.
