Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

...quickly through the forest
and over the sea,
past the storm clouds
beyond nightmares or dreams-
the winds of change are upon us.

Days gone by

I've been reading lately about the history of our culture, and I realize now what a narrow view I have had my entire life. Here I've been thinking that we're stuck in a rut- unwilling to change. But that assumption could not be further from the truth. We're not stuck. We're not stuck at all.

It wasn't that long ago that an American girl of 14 years old could be a grown man's wife.

My grandmother was one such girl. And I always knew that about her, as one tends to know his or her grandparents' history, but I never really thought about what that meant. That at one specific point in time, it was a common public perception that such a union was acceptable- even encouraged. These days, that guy's face would be plastered all over the nightly news and in most facebook statuses.

But, once upon a time, a little girl who'd just been married could go running to her parents, scared and confused about what her husband had just tried to do to her, and be told to go home.

And we keep going and going and going...

There's no denying there's a pretty big issue here. It's an uphill battle- a lot more uphill than I previously realized. In fact, it's pretty much a mountainous problem. But doesn't it say something about us that we've been able to come this far in a relatively short amount of time? No matter how big the issue, no matter how daunting or endless it seems, we keep trying. And though at times, we think that our efforts aren't working, there are things changing all around us all the time. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our day to day lives and all of the tasks we have to get done that we don't see them, but it doesn't mean they're not there. In every piece of new information that is read, in every link posted on a personal website, in every statement that is publicly made, someone somewhere is waking up a little bit. And every little bit helps.

I just want to take this moment in time and use it to encourage you. The next time you turn on your computer and go to the same site you always go to for entertainment or to simply waste time, go to any search engine first. Type in the first thing that comes to mind, and read what pops up. Everyone's got something in this life that they care about. I urge you to learn more about your something, to open your eyes to the possibility that there may be more outside of your comfort zone, and to embrace the changes in your life and in your world.

Because, whether you want them to or not, they're happening.

"...change can be so constant you don't even feel the difference until there is one. It can be so slow that you don't even notice that your life is better or worse, until it is. Or it can just blow you away, make you something different in an instant. It happened to me."

~George, Life as a House