Climate Change

Since I was a kid, I've been fascinated by weather.  I think it must run in the family, because my Dad shares my love of clouds and appreciation for nature.  I distinctly remember one time in Middle School when my Dad was driving me to All City Winds practice when all of the sudden the car pulled over.

Startled, I looked over at him. "What happened?!" 

"Look!" he said.  

"What?!"  I followed his gaze.

He was pointing to a beautiful magenta cloud formation as the setting sun illuminated the sky.  He was enraptured by the beauty of it.  (That moment is still one of my all-time favorite memories.)  Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "It is the invariable mark of wisdom to see the miraculous in the common."  My dad has a knack for that.  I like to think my eyes are open to see the miraculous in the common, too.

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I took the required geography and science classes throughout school, but I never really appreciated the difference between weather and climate until I started dabbling in aviation.  Weather means atmospheric conditions over a short period of time.  Rain, for example, is a temporal weather event.  Climate means a long-term pattern of weather (i.e. average temperatures) for a particular place, for a certain period of time.  If the storm clouds are rolling through, it's probably not a good day to go flying.  That's weather.  To weather we say, "Oh well, we'll just go flying tomorrow.  No big deal.  This will pass."  Climate, on the other hand, is a pattern of weather over time (ex: tropical, arid or ice cap).  Climate, more or less, stays the same.  I like to think of climate as the overall atmosphere of the place where you live.  The conditions you've come to expect.  Climate is like setting the thermostat at your house: temperatures may fluctuate, but that thermostat is set at 60 or 70 degrees.

So what's the climate like at your house?

I don't mean your room temperature.  I mean, how is the atmosphere?  Chilly?  Warm?  Hot?  Loving?  Depressing? Stressful?  Isolating?  Peaceful?  To what atmosphere are you accustomed to living in?  We've talked in very simple terms about the difference between weather and climate.  As it pertains to the environment of your home, an occasional hot spat or a moment of sadness is like weather: it fluctuates, but doesn't last.  However, if the norm is stress, isolation, depression or, conversely, love, joy, peace and kindness, then that's climate.  That pattern of thought and behavior has created the constant atmosphere of your life.   

Did you know that we carry our climates with us?  It's called character:  what people have come to expect from us.  If we live in stress, we project stress.  If we live in peace, we will project peace.  Some people try to fake us out by flashing a smile over a hurt.  "Yep!  Everything's great!" *Smile* "Well, gotta go!  See ya!"  Ha, don't ask me how I know this trick. ;-)  But it soon becomes evident to those around us what climate we live in, whether we try to hide it or not.   

A friend of mine told me once that some people don't know how to be well.  In other words, the atmospheric conditions in one's life could be so regularly chaotic that they wouldn't know what to do if peace showed up.  They simply wouldn't know how to act!  Or, conversely, one's life could be so full of peace that when chaos and stress showed up, they could say "Wait.  There's a problem here." 

The funny thing about climate is most of the time we're blissfully unaware of it.  Having lived my entire life thus far in the Northwest, I don't even think about having four distinct seasons every year, a cold, long winter and a hot summer.  It's just a way of life.  Just the way it is.  Too often, we live unaware of the climate in our own homes.  We think, "that's just how it is."  If a thundercloud comes rolling through because we've had a bad day, we just shrug it off and think, "this, too, shall pass."  It's weather, and we know it won't stay for long.  But if that thundercloud takes up residence in our lives and we become more used to cloudy days than sunny days....then maybe it's time for a climate change.

I don't mean pack your bags and move somewhere else.  (Or maybe I do, if that's what you need to do.)  Know this:  wherever you go, you'll be there.  If you move and the climate in your life there seems eerily familiar to the last place you lived, it's because you take your atmosphere with you.  Maybe it's hurricane season in your life right now.  You've been inundated with one thing after another after another.  Your life loosely resembles the book of Job.  Or you find yourself dreading the future more than anticipating it.  Maybe the forecast in your life looks dark and stormy as far as the eye can see.  Maybe that weather pattern has gone on for 30 years or more and you've just adapted to the climate.

Want a climate change? 

You're already half way there, because you've become aware of your current atmosphere.  Now start dreaming about where you want to live:  Peaceville?  Lovetown?  Joysburg?  Ha, ok.  That is ridiculously cheesy, but hopefully it makes the point.  The good news is we can pack our baggage without even leaving the living room.

So how do we change the climate in our lives? 

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.  Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.  - Philippians 4:8-9    

Psalm 127:2 says "It is vain (fruitless) for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so He gives His beloved sleep."

Stop feasting on worry and sorrow.  Start dwelling on (and in) what's true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, and change your forecast - for good.  Be transformed by your renewed outlook and watch the atmospheric undercurrents of your life change.  You won't keep beating your head against the wall over the same struggles day in and day out.  Don't fight your climate, change it.  You'll be free to enjoy life and kiss those clouds good-bye.