Do you allow people to change?

At my house in Silverton, I knew the daffodils would bloom on the hill between two oak trees. I knew the tulips were next to the stone wall in the front yard.

At the house we are renting, I don’t know what flowers have been planted.
I spied these leaves poking through the dirt and leaves outside the dining room window. I think it looks like a tulip but only time will tell and I am eager to see what it will become.

With each season, we know change happens. We know fall has arrived when we see the leaves turn from green to brilliant red, orange or a golden yellow. Winter announces it is on stage when the deciduous trees are naked – that’s what Blake once told me.  And it’s spring when the leaves uncurl from a long winter’s nap.

Why is it we are willing to accept the change in seasons yet less likely to accept a person can change?

How many times in a day do we judge a person? Once you form an opinion of someone, does it always stay that way? Or do you allow them to grow or yourself to forgive? For just a moment, think how you feel when someone labels you. Now ask why you label others. Have you ever let someone's label - whether it's their religion, politics, race, ... - sway you from forming a friendship?

Either volunteering in the schools or visiting them as a journalist over the many, many years, I have unfortunately heard some teachers and parents label kids. Good kid, bad kid. Smart kid. Kid who struggles. Some kids have the resilience to fight the labels. And some kids buy into what people say, lacking the tools to know how to change.

When I was in seventh grade, I was so shy I was afraid to talk to anyone. In high school, I thought about being a journalist but dismissed the idea because there was no way I could interview people so I resorted to taking photographs – safely hiding behind the lens. I am thankful for my boss at the Boston public relations firm I worked at for sitting me down and telling me I was a journalist and then setting up a meeting with his friend who was the editor of a weekly newspaper. Sometimes, it takes others seeing in you what you can’t see yourself and providing you with the encouragement to change.

As someone who has written her fair share of obituaries, I think that’s the only time someone should be labeled because his or her story is complete.

Until then, we should wait to see how the seasons of a person’s life bring about change.
And rejoice in who they are at the moment and who they are the next time we meet them.

If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
Gail Sheehy, author and journalist.

When you are through changing, you are through.
Bruce Barton, author, politician, served in the U.S. Congress and advertising executive.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian and commentator on public affairs