Have you ever changed your look, just for fun—say, cut your hair, switched to contact lenses or gotten your ears pierced? Maybe you didn’t just change your look, but changed your lifestyle. Maybe you decided to eat healthier, or to start reading more nonfiction (good choice!) or to smile more.
Change can be a really good thing, especially if it’s for the better. If you decide to change your driving habits to cut down on greenhouse gases, that’s a good thing. If you decide to be kind to everyone you meet, that’s a good change, too.
A lot of times, though, we change just because. Or we change without even realizing we are. We snap at our loved ones or step on the scale to find a disappointing number. We look at our lives and think, How did I get here?
Things are changing in Peter Parker’s world. He was trying to figure out how to live a regular ol’ life, and now he has to figure out something completely different: life with superpowers. And his shift in focus isn’t always for the better. He’s too busy exploring his new abilities to come home and paint the kitchen with Uncle Ben. He strings webbing through his room, starting with a Dr. Pepper can and ending with a smashed lamp. He finally fights back when Flash Thompson brings the pain—and makes quite a spectacle of it by punching Flash into next Thursday.
In short, Peter’s dealing with far more than your standard adolescent angst. And he hasn’t even started with all the Green-Goblin-fighting and Mary-Jane-rescuing stuff.
But Peter is sure of one thing: Even though his life is upside-down, topsy-turvy, he’ll figure it out. He is certain that he doesn’t need Uncle Ben’s words of wisdom, especially a phrase he uncorks just seconds before the all-important “With great power comes great responsibility” mantra.
Uncle Ben looks at Peter and underscores the fact that teen-agerhood is a time of great change, even delivering a line that comes across as an in-joke to those of us watching the film (“I went through exactly the same thing at your age,” to which Peter responds, “No, not exactly.” Ha!). Uncle Ben acknowledges the changes Peter is undergoing (though he doesn’t know the half of it) and reminds him: “Just be careful who you change into.”
Why? Why would Uncle Ben caution such care in the change? Because he knows that Peter has a choice. It certainly looks like Peter is on a self-destructive path of violence, rebellion, apathy and self-centeredness—and in a way, he is. He’s a little bit drunk on his own superpowers, and it’s starting to show in his outward actions. He isn’t antisocial, and he isn’t turning into a supervillain, but he is preparing to use his superpowers in a way that benefits himself and only himself.
Uncle Ben sees it and gives Peter some invaluable wisdom … though we would argue that Uncle Ben doesn’t take it far enough. In the film, Cliff Robertson delivers the dialogue superbly, and really makes us believe that Peter is at a time when he’s “changing into the man he’s going to become for the rest of his life.” But in actuality, while adolescence does pave the way for adulthood, it is not irrevocable. If we make bad choices as teenagers, we aren’t necessarily saddled with a crummy adult life; we are merely saddled with the consequences of bad choices, and the road to lasting happiness becomes more difficult.
Instead, every day is a decision. Every hour, every minute. We’re constantly making decisions, either to do the right thing or the wrong thing or nothing. Our lives are in a constant state of change, whether it looks like it or not, and we are never guaranteed tomorrow.
So, the words ring true. “Be careful who you change into.”
And they remind us of other words, spoken by God to the Israelites and recounted in Deuteronomy 30:19-20:
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
It’s all about free will, when it comes to this life of ours. That’s the way God set it up for us: He gave us the ability to choose. That’s why the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was in the Garden of Eden in the first place: God wanted to make sure that obedience was a conscious decision Adam made, not a mandate handed down from on high. How could Adam choose to obey if he was surrounded by nothing but good? He had to have the ability to choose unwisely in order for his obedience to mean anything.
And in a way, we all have that same decision placed before us, at all times. We’re all changing—but we have to be careful about who we’re changing into. Are we, like scientist Norman Osborn, letting our fears and worries get the best of us and changing into horrible, selfish monsters hell-bent on seeing our own desires fulfilled, regardless of the price others have to pay?
Or are we, like Peter Parker, earnestly seeking to choose life—making choices that lead us to bettering ourselves and the world around us, acting selflessly in order to save others and make this world safer and more peaceful?
Who are we changing into? Regardless of the choices we’ve made in the past, we can start making the right choice. Today. Right now. We can decide exactly who we change into.
And we can make sure that person is worth the change.