Article March 10, 1973 Issue

Buoyant Adjustment to Change

RUTH GARDNER SPARROW

I had had my hair done by the same beauty operator for a number of years. While having a permanent wave, I noticed that the length of time required for the wave to take was considerably longer than in years past, when great care had to be exercised not to overwave it. Commenting on this, I asked if stubbornness was a quality of the incoming gray hairs.

The beautician perceptively quipped, "Yes. It resists change." She was, of course, knowingly referring not only to stubborn hair but to one of the most tenacious beliefs about people of advancing years—that they begin to resist any change of old, familiar patterns. This material belief must be dealt with spiritually, or else it is very likely to be expressed in one's experience without his even realizing it.

We can neutralize the effects of this belief by denying that the real man, God's beloved child, is subject to unlovely experiences of aging, its deterioration and rigidity of thought. It is not possible to lose in any degree the lovely qualities given to us by our all-good, all-powerful Father—newness, freshness, beauty, vitality, spontaneity. Doesn't the Bible tell us, "Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it"?^{ Eccl. 3:14;} The one perfect divine Mind naturally creates and maintains perfection in its spiritual ideas, its individual expressions.