What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?

As a child, one of my favorite things to checkout from the small rural branch of the library on our side of the county was a VHS tape of a 1983 program called "What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?" It's a lesser known Peanuts cartoon that details the gang's trip through France as exchange students. The cartoon takes on a bit of a somber tone as it recollects a few events from the world wars with rotoscope animation and film clips when the group camps by the beaches of Normandy, and there is a line for which the program is named that Linus asks towards the end of the show: "What have we learned, Charlie Brown?" I must admit that when juxtaposed against the real-world events depicted in the cartoon, my problems are incredibly small and trivial. However, the question is one that I do find myself repeating to myself when I get into introspective moods such as the one that leads me to sit down at the keyboard tonight.

I have experienced many things in life that my immediate ancestors did not; all the way from being a member of the first "connected generation" with near unfettered access to the internet during its hay day, to being one of the last US service members to leave Afghan soil as the war I grew up watching on television drew to a close. Despite the many experiences I have had, I cannot help but feel like I have failed in certain aspects as an adult. The actual shortcomings of which I speak are ones I choose to keep for myself, but as the final leaves of autumn are finally leaving the branches that supplied their beauty in the spring and summer months and the dark winds of winter begin to creep across the face of December, I ruminate on these thoughts and ask myself the question "What have we learned, J?" In my three completed decades walking by God's grace upon the face of his creation, I have learned that time waits for no person. Another autumn has come and gone, and another winter has arrived to dwell. I sit in the same rut that I have been in for a few years now, too busy pondering when change will arrive to seek it out for myself. I wave in passing as life carries those I care about to and fro between their various destinations; each time they stop by, I manage to keep a small part of them with me. As I file away the specters of these people away into my personality I suppose I am changing in some small part. I'm definitely not quite the same person I was last year when the frozen breeze first cut my bones, but the underlying flawed formula that drives me is still the same.

Can a person truly change for the better of their own volition? I do believe so. I've witnessed it. As I face the continual challenge to change, my admiration for those I have seen do it grows as my understanding of the struggle deepens.