Small or Large

"Tradition is the illusion of permanence.” ~Woody Allen

Winter came early to Ontario this year. Things on the calendar were being shifted until less inclement weather or being cancelled altogether. So when I heard the weather report for heavy snow with streamers starting in the mid-afternoon and lasting overnight, I was not happy. We had been planning to meet an old friend for dinner, something we had been doing for at least 6 years, ever since we no longer saw them on a regular basis during the normal course of our week. The next few weeks were busy for our friend, and in any case Christmas was closing in. What to do? Cancel until the new year? That seemed a long way away. Then I had an epiphany! Why not see if our friend was available for lunch instead of supper? Just because we had always HAD supper didn’t mean we couldn’t change. After all we were all retired…. Sounds simple, right? Even obvious.

What this exercise did was point out to me though was just how insidious and how quickly something can become a tradition. I ‘sort of’ knew that. But what I hadn’t fully realized before was just how difficult it is to see the obvious alternative, even after just a few years. We have all been in situations, where someone has suggested a new idea, or a new way pf doing something, only to have someone say “But we always did it this way!?” and heads to nod in agreement around the table. Occasionally one of these ’new’ ideas might sneak through, only to become ‘the way we always did it’ by the next year. While this story sounds simple, it really was one of those moments when just a small piece of reality became clearer. It really was an epiphany!

Epiphanies can be large or small. In the church we celebrate the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles as represented by the magi on January 6th each year.. Yes, in that story the magi had an epiphany, one that had them return to their homeland by another route. Obviously that was a large epiphany, one that turned their carefully-made plans upside down. So too, our epiphanies will turn our lives upside down in either a larger or a small way. But one thing is certain in either case, they do make a difference!

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NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

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