Ephemeral

e . phem . . er . al /adjective/ lasting only for a short time, transitory, fleeting, short-lived

The other day I met a fellow shopper in the supermarket aisle.  She was looking for a particular brand of dishwashing detergent. I had looked for the same brand the week before, but didn’t find it, so I looked again with her, and when we didn’t find it, we  grumbled together about the unnecessary changes that stores make. On the shelf was a different version of the product we wanted–new and improved, I should imagine.  Instead of the powder to pour, there was a smaller box of little square pods with built-in drying agent. All-in-one, the box proclaimed. I preferred the powder. So did my search buddy. Why did they have to change it?  We groused but had to accept the new box with its new contents.

We buy a gadget that we like, and it  seems to work fine, but after a while, something else replaces it. It happens all the time in our technology-dominated society. We are in a constant state of consumer flux–as unstable as water.

This week’s word, ephemeral, is all about change. It came to us from the Greek and had the original meaning of “lasting only for one day.”  In medieval times, the word was used in medical textbooks to refer to a twenty-four-hour fever, and scientists later used the word to identify animals with a short life span. By the 17th century, ephemeral came to refer to anything that is transitory in nature. So fame, happiness, success, even a relationship, can be ephemeral, given the right circumstances.

Change is a constant in life, and we humans have adapted to it naturally. You would expect poets to be attracted to the word ephemeral, considering their tendency to look at life through  more deliberate, probing, and  impassive lens than the rest of us do. In his poem “Ephemera,” William Butler Yeats writes  poignantly about a couple growing old together–inevitable change. And in a poem with the same title, Robert Becker laments the passing of an Alaskan June with all its activities as it gives  way to July. The word evanescence  carries the same meaning as ephemeral. Things marked by brevity of existence are evanescent.  Poet Emily Dickinson’s “A Route of Evanescence” paints a vivid picture of a flash of beauty created by the rapid movement of a hummingbird among shrubbery. It is a beautiful display by nature,  but oh, how fleeting!

Change occurs all the time. We acknowledge that, but it is important to remember that in this world there are some things that do not change. This idea is brought out in a book  that has been an all-time favorite of children–and grownups as well. In The Little Prince, by Antoine Saint de Exupery, a young boy-prince leaves his home on a far away planet and travels the universe, going from one planet to another, learning as he goes. On his visit to his sixth planet, he  meets a geographer from whom he learns the word ephemeral.  Always looking for answers, he presses the geographer for the meaning of the word.  The geographer tells the little prince that he records  things in his large book, but he does not record flowers. This is quite disturbing to the little prince since, to him, a flower is the most beautiful thing on the planet where he lives. “We do not record them,” the geographer tells him, “because they are ephemeral,”  and he adds that geographers are concerned with “matters of consequence.” He says that a mountain doesn’t change position, and  the ocean doesn’t empty itself of its water.  The geographer explains, “We write of eternal things. . .what matters to us is the mountain. It does not change.”

And therein lies the point of this week’s  post.  Some things do change and should change, but the things that really matter do not change. Looking at today’s social milieu, we can safely say that some of  the qualities we have long valued have faded or are fading. Values such as ethical leadership, self-less service, and good judgment are vanishing from everyday private life  as well as from the public square. Credibility and trustworthiness are also disappearing in the glare of self-promotion and me-centeredness.

The little prince learns another lesson toward the end of his travels. On another planet he meets a fox who tells him, “It is only with the heart that we can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” I think invisible virtues are like mountains. They do not change. Goodness, compassion, and gratitude are all internal, invisible  values. They show up in our actions, but they  reside within, where they are not readily seen, but work their way outward in observable actions. Civility, honesty, integrity, and even politeness are part of the essential values, “the things that matter.”  My pastor titled one of his recent sermons “Anothering,” a word he coined and  which he used to mean  “putting another person  ahead of ourselves.”  Anothering may be classified as one of the invisible values, for it is from within that we are motivated to consider the welfare of others above our own.  Love for others comes from within; it is invisible and only shows up in what we do. Though  invisible, love  matters most as we see from the Apostle Paul’s triad of virtues–Faith, Hope, Love. And he says, “The greatest of these is Love,”  which is invisible but powerfully influential and unchanging.

In everyday life, change is inevitable. Many things are ephemeral,  but the things that are essential do not change. As the old geographer told the little prince,  “the thing that matters to us [geographers] is the mountain.”  Like the mountain, the God of the universe  is enduring–“from everlasting to everlasting.” He does not change.  In light of this grand truth,  we are moved to say with the hymn writer, “O Thou who changest not, abide with  me.”

Blessings,

Judith

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“We can all afford values; they don’t cost a dime.”   N. A. Makris