It is no startling revelation to say that we are in a time my friend Max would have referred to as, “… a yeasty moment.”
Something is bubbling. Strong, unseen forces are at work, above and below the surface. Change is afoot everywhere you look. I walk apprehensively as the ground seems to buckle and surge with every step I take.
THE GIVEN: Life on this planet will not be the same on the other side of whatever-this-is as it was before. Hard truths are being voiced. Ancient wounds are being uncovered. Old, solid, accepted solutions are being exposed for what they really are: defense mechanisms for an oppressive status quo.
There will be no “the way it used to be” to go back to. It was lost in the fire.
All of which makes me ask: how does authentic change happen in the world? And when I say CHANGE, I mean lasting, elemental, paradigm-shifting change. BC/AD-level stuff.
Sometimes change is violent… sudden and unavoidable. Mount St. Helens blows up and redefines an entire part of the map.
Other change – changes in the way we treat deadly diseases, for example –happens only through a creeping, glacially slow evolutionary process.
Changes in social structures and the laws that support them seem to fall somewhere between those two extremes.
Describing the process of change is easy: first comes the recognition of the need for change. That recognition grows and spreads until some empowered person (or group of people) takes the necessary and effective steps and institutes the change.
Lastly, the change leaders dig in and prepare to defend that change against the inevitable assaults from those who oppose it.
As I said, describing the process of change is easy. Carrying it out is anything but.
Thinking back, I can recall one change in my own life I made with relative speed and ease. After watching this video of a TED Talk, (Click here), I immediately decided to change the way I tied my shoes.
Just about every other change in my life has been preceded by much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth… even when I agreed the change was needed.
Right now, we are at the “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth” phase of the change in our way of being a nation. The killing of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers last week has ignited a tinderbox of rage, sweeping up even those most committed to staying on the sidelines. The brazen injustice of that act combined with the frustration of the coronavirus lockdown, the rampant loss of economic security, and an already bitterly divided electorate are all helping feed the flames engulfing our cities today.
Some of us want immediate, wholesale, revolutionary change. We spray-paint obscenities on public buildings, set dumpsters ablaze, lock arms and chant in the streets. We ignore curfew orders, police loudspeakers, and clouds of teargas, daring authorities to arrest us.
Some of us want to sit calmly at a bargaining table and rationally work out the size and shape of the change. We want to be social engineers, carefully drawing our blueprints. We disapprove of the tactics used by our boisterous sisters and brothers and wish they would stop breaking things and alienating people.
What neither of us quite seems to realize is that BOTH of these voices are needed to affect change. I have no doubt that were it not for the loud, obnoxious voices of the sit-ins, peace marches, and draft card burnings, this country might still be mired in the swamps of Viet Nam. Without the rude PETA people throwing buckets of red paint at people wearing fur coats, there might never have been any meaningful animal-welfare laws passed.
The loud voices call the moderates “sellouts.” The calmer voices call the loud ones, “radicals” and “anarchists.”
I pray that each extreme in this debate might see the vital role played by the other and that real, lasting, just change will arise from this troubling moment of national anguish.
Of course, the only real, lasting, soul-deep change in the world AND its people is the change of comes from faith in Christ. As Paul reminds us, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation…” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18, NRSV)
Praise God for change. Praise God for justice. Praise God for reconciliation.
Abundant blessings;
Russellings of the Spirit 
That business about tying one’s shoelaces incorrectly is a great analogy. I bet there are many ways in which we’re, allegorically speaking, tying our shoelaces wrongly, yet we simply don’t realise it. My problem is that even now that I know that I’m doing that, I wonder if I’m able to change. I’ve got around the problem up to now by double-knotting my laces, and that seems to work.
The initial change is not easy. But after a few repetitions, it too becomes natural.