RSS 
E-Mail7 comments
I love the ebb and flow of nature. As a matter of fact, I’d be hard-pressed to choose my favorite season of the year. A while back I really got into investigating what takes place during each successive stage of the equinox: winter to spring, summer to fall, and back to winter again.
In this season of falling leaves and scurrying animals in search of goodies for their winter storehouses, I find myself in a reflective mood regarding the entire idea of ‘change.’ I wonder why it is such a natural part of nature and yet so often resisted in my own life and those with whom I hold conversation.
There is a saying I once heard that goes like this: “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less!” Wow, that sort of frames so many in life, doesn’t it? Change or become irrelevant; change or become yesterday’s answers for a world with an entirely different set of questions today.
I can’t help but see the progressive and hopefully upward growth in the most important relational areas of my life – with my parents, spouse, children, siblings and friends – and perhaps most of all, my faith. And while each of these areas proved challenging on the journey from expansion to growth to change, I wouldn’t go back for anything in the world. Everything seems so much better now. There is a greater sense of peace and purpose about life.
Now at 50 I can honestly say that I see the world in entirely new ways than I once did. I’m not sure I saw that one coming. For much of my life there were foundational ideas in my worldview that I knew would never change. But they did. They changed because they had to change – they changed because my view of the world became much more expansive and my intuition was telling me that there was a better story of a bigger ‘God,’ and the God and faith I had been handed as a child was no longer relevant to the life I now found myself facing as an adult.
I look at the world today and wonder what other changes I will see before my time is up. I hope I’m around to see a world where diverse and disparate faiths learn to celebrate what each has to offer to help all of us understand the Numinous a bit better than we do now. I also hope I’m around to see geopolitical agendas become subservient to cooperating with the poorer countries of the world so that their citizens might have a better life and know some sort of abundance before they die.
Change or irrelevance – those are our choices.
There are many changes I could express, things I’d like to see spring forth from a winter season, but I’m interested in hearing some of the things that are on your mind… what would you list?
7 comments to “If You Don’t Like Change…”
-
Well I think I represent a big part of change in my family circle. And it’s a wonderful thing! And I am not JUST being optimistic.
-
Ahhhh, changes. My ego resists, and the Spirit entices, ever-leading. My ego, I notice, is akin to the Institutionalized-Ego of Christianity, in which defending status quo is seen as THE most holy and righteous stance. How irrelevant then is that which clings to the I Was, to the deprivation of I AM.
Changes I’ve noticed/experienced … moving from fear to love is the *biggie*… and it manifests in innumerable ways (which doesn’t stop me from attempting to count them, LOL!).
Moving from suspicion to trust …
Moving from self-protection to vulnerability …
Moving from “I know” to “I don’t know” …
Moving from “us vs. them” to “All Us” …
Moving from closed to open …
Moving from arriving to journeying …
Moving from “safety” to “insatiable” …
Moving from exclusivity to inclusivity …
Moving from absolutes to possibilities …
Moving from isolationism to universalism …
Moving from resistant to receptive …
Moving from labeling to seeing past appearances …
Moving from judgment to compassion …
Moving from truth as a concept, to Truth as a Person …(I could go on forever, but this is YOUR blog, Tim and not mine … see, I’m moving from selfishness to sharing!)
-
Oh how wonderfully funny! Just got this youtube link from Rob Hunter, in an entirely different-and-yet-connected conversation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T81cgSJsrf4
-
Change has come to me by becoming present to other thoughts and ideas.
I recall reading ( I think it was in the book ‘The Hiding Place’ ) about how the people in one of the nazi prison camps were able to carry on Bible studies because they were covered in fleas. The fleas held the guards at bay. So, while one traded the fear of fleas for relationship, the other was kept from relationship because of them.
My life was like that. Closed off by the fear of becoming ‘contaminated’ by something OTHER.
Now ‘other’ is something to explore and learn about and, amazingly, sometimes, even promote! -
I love this place. Thanks Tim.
-
-
Tim, I do not think it is possible for me to disagree with you more!
Eh, just joshing ya
You said it all. The biggest change would be that “disparate faiths learn to celebrate” for that is what they are to be about — not moralizing, not running governments or, ahem, political parties, not rewriting science books. Religion is to be about celebrating what WE ALL most value, which for the life o’ me, mostly seems to be the very same things! The change I want to better commit to, personally, follows from this: to celebrate more moments of this incredible journey than I do!
My response: Let There Be Peace on Earth – preambles to dialogue
Thanks for the reminder, Tim. This is my story as well.