Joining the Chorus of Creation

Our Journey Toward Inward Transformation

The cells of our body regenerate approximately every seven years.

That means that every single cell of your body is completely replaced over a seven year span. To me, that is staggering. As a nearly 48 year-old man I am not the same person physically as I was when I was a young boy, or even as I was seven years ago. The composition of my body is entirely different. Cells have died and new cells have been generated. I am constantly a new me! And I have done this nearly seven times in my life!

Unbelievable.

But this isn’t true for only humans. It seems to be the natural rhythm of all things. Things are constantly changing and transforming, dying and coming to life. As I look out the window at this very wintry moment, the grass is brown and the leaves have fallen. But I know that as the daylight grows longer, as warmer temperatures arrive, and the Spring precipitation begins to fall, new life will begin to emerge from the ground and blossom from the tree. This is the cycle and rhythm we live within.

While this is extraordinary to think about, it is also quite sobering. While we are witnesses to this never-ending physical transformation of all living things, and even unconscious participants in it, it is possible for this transformation to stay at the surface without ever penetrating our exterior. We can be always changing on the outside, while remaining unchanged on the inside.

Day by day. Year by year. Decade by decade. Our cells change. Our bodily composition changes. Yet we can stay the same person on the inside the entire time.

Think about that.

While our physical bodies have no choice but to constantly change and transform, we only change on the inside as a matter of our own doing. There is an intentionality to this transformation, to traveling from one destination to another on this spiritual journey. It does not magically happen. It does not unconsciously occur. If we are to begin to change on the inside, it is a matter of intention.

If I am honest, it is like all of creation has been showing us how it is supposed to be done from the very beginning. It is like a song beckoning us to join the chorus of all creation, telling us there is only one pattern of truly growing and transforming. And it is of death and life, not just outwardly but inwardly. Yet, it is a choice as to whether we join this song with our innermost being. We have the choice to stay oblivious and unchanged. Or, we can each begin to open ourselves up to the possibility that we, too, can become something new.

Question

1. When you think about your own individual transformation, or spiritual growth, what is one thing that needs to symbolically “die” within you? What is it that you want to come to life within you?

Peace,

Brandon