Tale as old as time, true as it can be,
Barely even friends, then somebody bends,
Unexpectedly.

Just a little change, small to say the least
Both a little scared, neither one prepared
Beauty and the beast.

Ever just the same, ever a surprise,
Ever just as sure, as the sun will rise.

Tale as old as time, tune as old as song,
Bittersweet and strange, finally you can change,
Learning you were wrong.

Certain as the sun, rising in the east,
Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme,
Beauty and the beast.

I'm interested in the phrase in that song, "… then somebody bends, unexpectedly." I've been thinking about it because, let's face it, I'm growing older. I had always hoped that growing older would make me a better person. It hasn't. Growing older has just made me less flexible, more set in my ways. Bending-any kind of bending-is becoming more difficult.

I notice that when I drop something and have to get down on the floor to pick it up, I look around to see if there is anything else I can do while I am down there. That's a sure sign of getting older, I understand. Bending is more difficult.

When I wake up in the morning-the very early morning, I might add-I sometimes feel sore all over, and it takes a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee before I get over it.

I'm afraid that my mind is getting less agile, too. Not long ago, I was talking to my doctor, Grover Bynum, and I couldn't come up with a word I wanted to say.

"Having a senior moment, eh?" Grover remarked. "I've been having those, too."

"It's just ridiculous," I said.

As I said those words, I realized I was sounding just the way my relatives up in Iowa used to sound. They were an unbending lot-Scandinavians and Germans mostly, good people all, but not given to changing their minds once they made them up. I always thought the phrase "It's just ridiculous" should be the slogan for the state of Iowa.

People say it all the time up there.

Iowa is a grid. The entire state is cut up into squares and rectangles. Few curves exist. The towns are built north, south, east and west. On a clear winter's night in Iowa, you can stand looking north on any street, and up above you'll see the north star. In our house, we used to use compass directions. My mother would say to me, "Your socks are upstairs in the northwest bedroom in the chest of drawers on the south side of the room."

Living on a grid like that tends to make you a little unbending, I think.

When hybrid corn was invented, my uncles all said, "It's just ridiculous. It won't last."

And when the county agent tried to get them to plow along the contours of the land, they said, "It's just ridiculous. We've always done it straight up and down."

It took forever to get them to eat pizza or McDonald's hamburgers, and, to this day, some of my relatives have never tried Mexican food or eaten a shrimp or touched a green salad.

Of course, I'm exaggerating. Iowans have changed. Farmers listen to "All Things Considered" on the FM radios in their tractors. They have satellite dishes in their backyards. They enjoy their beautifully contoured fields and their bumper crops of hybrid corn. But I can assure you that most of these changes came only after many repetitions of "It's just ridiculous."

Bending is not something that comes naturally to me. I've had to work on it all my life. I thought I was doing fairly well, but then I used that "It's just ridiculous" phrase with Grover Bynum. I felt as if a kind of Iowa grid had dropped down on me again, and I suddenly needed to know where the north star was.

Am I becoming unbending, stiff, set in my ways? Can I change any more? Can I be more flexible?

In France earlier this week-on vacation with Ben's family-I had a chance to talk with my grandchildren.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" I asked 9-year-old Zach.

He had an occupation in mind. "I want to test new products for Nintendo," he said.

Before I could stop myself, I started to say, "That's just rid. …"

Then I stopped. Could I bend, unexpectedly?

It's not really a bad idea, is it? Somebody has to be the new product tester for Nintendo. And why not Zachary? He is intimately familiar with Nintendo's products-and he is an excellent judge of their quality.

"Good," I said. "That's a good idea. Very practical. And you can start getting ready for it right now, can't you? Why not ask your mom for the newest game?"

I asked 15-year-old Mary the same question. "What do you want to do for a living?"

"I want to be a pediatric neurosurgeon," she said.

Now that surprised me because she can usually be found reading a paperback book whose cover shows a young woman standing on a cliff in stormy weather. The young woman is improperly dressed for the occasion. In that weather, she needs at least a sweater or a raincoat. Instead, she appears in a low cut dress bending backward in the rain rather like a damp croissant. Towering over her is a good-looking fellow with long hair and flashing eyes. It's not exactly what I would think of as pediatric neurosurgical reading material. And I started to tell Mary that her choice of future jobs was unrealistic. I started to say, "It's just rid. . . ."

And I stopped.

I don't really know what neurosurgeons read in between patients. They might very well read a lot of romance novels.

"You have made a good choice, Mary," I said. "We need a physician in the family. Follow your dream, and let's see what happens."

Bending unexpectedly. That's what I'm trying to do, however unconvincingly. I need to stop being so critical, so set in my ways. I need to be flexible, to be open to new possibilities. I do not want my grandchildren to think of me as a crusty, complaining, fault-finding old curmudgeon. Yet it is difficult for me to do the right thing-to be positive, responsive, encouraging, compassionate, to say something that might lead to helpful change.

Bending unexpectedly is increasingly difficult for me. I think I have drifted away from the confident faith of my fathers. As I think about it, it seems to me that many of the holy writings deal with personal or social change and how it happens. And many of those writings seem to me to suggest that change occurs when someone, some person, bends unexpectedly.

Think of the story of Abraham and Isaac, the beginning of it all. There is Abraham on the mountain following the dictate of God as given by an angel, ready to sacrifice his son Isaac on a hastily constructed altar. He raises his knife, ready to strike the boy. Then, unexpectedly someone bends.

This man Abraham is special to God. Unlike the other halfhearted believers and followers, he is a committed man. God recognizes this. He stops the killing and allows Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead, and from that moment, human sacrifice is never again required of Abraham or any of his people. In this account from the very beginnings of our faith, God himself seems to bend, unexpectedly, and from this bending change occurs and civilization advances.

Two thousand years later a young prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, encounters a group of men on a dusty road intent on stoning a woman to death. The woman has been taken in adultery, and stoning is the traditional punishment in such cases-for the woman at any rate.

The men ask Jesus whether they should go ahead. He doesn't reply at first, but stoops down and writes in the dust. It is a bending, an important bending. They interrupt him again, asking what they should do.

Then Jesus stands up and says, "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone."

It is a stunning reply. He has not changed the law of Moses. He has simply made its enforcement intensely personal. Every man there is convicted in his own conscience and each departs, leaving Jesus alone with the woman.

"Did no one condemn you?" he asks.

"No one, Lord," she replies.

"Neither do I," Jesus says, "Now go and sin no more."

How many unexpected bendings are here! Jesus bends. The men bend. The woman, I suspect, bends most of all. No stones are thrown. And as the woman walks away to a new life, the world shifts ever so slightly in a better direction. Understandings change. Morality advances. And it all happens because of bending.

Only a few years later, an angry young man hurries down the Road to Damascus. He carries papers, legal papers that will disastrously affect the lives of those Jews in Damascus who are acting in strange ways, following the teachings of their deposed and crucified leader. Their behavior is just ridiculous, and Saul has been authorized by the high priest to stamp it out, to forbid it, and to arrest the offenders.

Suddenly the young man is surrounded by a blinding light.

He falls down on the road. He hears a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" When he gets up, he is blind, helpless. Who will come for him? Who will find Saul and take care of him? It turns out to be a member of the very group that Saul has been trying to destroy. Three days later, he recovers his sight when one of Christ's followers, Ananias, lays his hands on him. At that moment, Saul bends, unexpectedly. He himself becomes a follower of Christ. And as a result of that bending the whole world rises to a new level of consciousness.

Yes, it seems to me that the scriptures often depict change occurring when someone bends, unexpectedly. I think of Thomas, the doubting apostle, bending when he puts his hand into the side of the risen Christ. I think of Peter, changing his mind about the dietary and other laws and whether the gentile followers of Christ will be required to follow them. I think of Gamaliel, the famous Jewish teacher, Paul's teacher, who appears before the Sanhedrin as that important council debates the question of what should be done about the Christians. Everyone expects him to defend the law as it is-traditional, unchanging-the rules that must be obeyed to the end of time. But instead he says, "If this enterprise, this movement of theirs, is of human origin it will break up of its own accord; but if it does in fact come from God you will not only be unable to destroy them, you might find yourselves fighting against God." Yes, even Gamaliel bends, and in his bending he creates a space, a niche where the seed of a new religion, younger brother to Judaism, can take root and grow.

Has your own life been changed by someone who bent, unexpectedly?

If yours is at all like mine, it has-many times. It still happens to me. And I can tell you that some of those bendings have greatly enriched my life. And perhaps a few times I have changed someone else's life when I myself, never an easy bender, and less and less a bender as I grow older, have managed to take a deep breath and utter not the expected. "That's just ridiculous," but the unexpected, "Yes. Go ahead. Let's give it a try."

We sometimes hear it said that bending is wrong-it represents a betrayal of the values of our faith. I'm sure that this is true sometimes. But other times it is not. To me, the scriptures seem to reveal that bending often leads to beneficial spiritual change. No, getting older does not automatically mean getting better. And it may be true that from now on I am destined to wake up in the morning physically sore and unbending. But with God's help, my soul-my soul-can be flexible and free and willing and able to change. Younger or older, perhaps we all ought to ask ourselves this question from time to time: Am I being unreasonably uptight with someone I know and love? If I am, now may be a good time for me to consider my actions prayerfully and see whether a little unexpected bending might be in order.