Adventures in Paradise Volune 2 #11

 

Kia ora! Our excellent adventure continues with some thoughts on change and how a mystery came to be solved. Reflection is a natural process this time of the year. As we face a new year and all of the possibilities that may be waiting for us, we also look back on what was and what might have been. Changes that we had planned to make last January may or may not have been realized; they may be in process; or they may have been abandoned all together. It occurs to me that many of us are way too impatient. We live in a world of immediacy. It is possible to dial up, punch up or look up almost anything with amazing speed and many of us have become impatient with anything that is not instant.

When we first arrived in New Zealand, we noticed something very odd about the surrounding mountains. The emerald-green hillsides were riddled with little, almost evenly spaced narrow tiers.  It appeared that some giant master carver had traveled through out the island chiseling away at one mountainside after another. It was a mystery to us and quite fascinating to contemplate just how all of those slopes had the same little ridges cut into them. These tiers began at the base of each hill and extended all the way to the top. My first thought was to wonder how in the world the farmers had made all of those ridges. How long must it take to complete such a task and what in the world were they planting? This mystery remained unsolved until one day I had a conversation with a local, who smiled patiently when I asked my question about the origin of the ridges.

 

Ross Honey unraveled the mystery by explaining that contrary to what I had assumed, there had been no planting, rather those ridges were the result of years and years of hillside grazing by cattle and sheep. Due to the fact that some flat lands are far too soggy for grazing because of their nearness to the ocean, the sheep and cattle are herded onto the hillsides. Over the course of many, many years, and in some cases, centuries, those sure-footed animals had grazed their way all across those hills. They were feeding horizontally! Eventually, after years of making pathways into the hillsides, they had created the totally fascinating and mysterious patterns that piqued our curiosity. Ward laughed when I wondered aloud whether any of the animals ever rolled down those hills while enjoying dinner. He assured me that four feet were definitely an advantage over two in this case!

So what does this have to do with change? It occurs to me that these ridges were not made quickly. The change in those hillsides developed over long periods of time and almost always, small changes would not be noticeable from one days’ grazing to the next. Significant changes were occurring, but at a very slow rate and early on, had the animals been removed from the hill, the ground would have returned to its’ original state. Later, after many years, the changes became permanently apparent and finally those hillsides were irreversibly tiered, never to be smooth again. Now, although many sheep and cattle still graze, some of those hills are not used any longer, but they will never revert to their original condition. They have become something else. They are not what they used to be.

Isn’t that the way with us? We think about change or the need to reconfigure our lives. Often we start out with excellent intentions only to find that the actual altering of who we are or what we are doing takes more time than we anticipated. It is possible that our efforts are making little inroads or tiers, if you will, but the change is so gradual that we don’t notice and we stop making the effort. Sometimes we are looking for an instant cure or immediate gratification to prove that we are doing the right thing. We are unable to see any evidence of change although it does exist. Given enough “grazing” time, we would be able to see positive results, but many of us are too impatient to continue. If it isn’t happening now, it isn’t happening! We don’t change because it takes too long.

Conversely, another way of looking at this could be to consider those little habits or changes that we pick up along our way without giving them much thought. There are those insidious little things that seem insignificant at the time. The “one time won’t matter” things. Those “it really isn’t that important anyway” things. Those habits that take hold of us one tiny step at a time, until we find that we have created permanent ruts in our lives. We look back at our once smooth hillsides and wonder how in the world did those ridges happen?

While it may be difficult and to some it may seem almost impossible, we know that we are blessed with the opportunity to make change happen in our own lives. Sometimes the most frightening realization is to know that we are in charge of ourselves. We have been given the opportunity to make choices and through those choices great change can occur. We can remember to be patient with ourselves and with each other and to appreciate that changing most always takes time and is done in small, incremental steps. Those mysterious hillsides didn’t happen quickly. But they happened and they stand as a reminder that small steps can bring about the lovely new patterns that in my opinion, make those hillsides even more beautiful and fascinating than they were originally.

As always, we are happy and trying to work hard. We are grateful for the new year and the opportunity we have to look forward. We are learning to embrace change and hope that we can learn to be patient in the process.

Love, Ward and Susan     Elder and Sister Belliston, serving in Gisborne, New Zealand