Adapting – Sunday, March 02, 1980
On the world’s highest mountains there comes a point beyond which no tree can grow.
The air is too cool, the growing season too short to sustain a mighty tree. But there is some plant life in the alpine meadows above the tree line—wildflowers especially adapted for the harsh conditions. Instead of being long-stemmed and large like the flowers lower on the mountain, they are tiny and hug the ground for warmth. Their growing season is short. And, perhaps most interesting, some of the flowers face the rising sun in the morning and turn to follow its light all day, until when the sun sets, the flower faces west. A marvelous adaptation to a fierce environment. No long-stemmed, large flower from the lower reaches could survive above the tree line.
Adaptation seems to be one of nature’s great laws, and it ought to be one of ours too. For while there is the great constant in our lives of eternal laws that must be obeyed, much else about us seems to change. At one time of life we are the child to our parents, at another we are the parent to a child. Our life may bring us days of companionship and love; it may bring us days of loneliness. A sunny day is not a constant for there is no growth without the rain. Yes, all about us and within us, there is always change.
As one writer suggested, “There is no point at which having arrived we can remain.”1 Life is like a river. At no point can we step into it and call it fixed—even if we would like to. A moment may be so precious we would like to clutch it to us and hold it there, but it always passes on.
What are we to do then, we mortals for whom the landscape so often changes? Like the alpine flowers above the tree line, we must adapt to survive.
Life may not meet our best expectations; our rigid schedules may have to be redone; our tastes based in the quirks of our own personality may have to be widened. Whatever circumstance life may thrust upon us, we must be ready to learn from it and live with it. We cannot call back the past. We cannot lament forever the circumstances that wouldn’t conform to our will. When life doesn’t meet our brightest hopes, we must simply press forward with courage, willing to give, unwilling ever to give in, always aware that life changes.
1 Richard Evans Quote Book, “Success, Adversity, Opportunity, Decisions.” Publishers Press. pg. 61.
“The Spoken Word” heard over KSL and CBS from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 2,1980, 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon, Eastern Time Copyright 1980 Bonneville Productions
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March 02, 1980
Broadcast Number 2,637