Change: Friend or Foe?

I fully recognize the security provided by routine and consistency.  As my visual world disappears, having a place for everything and everything being in its place is extremely helpful.  My wife occasionally warns me that if I don’t behave myself, she will rearrange the furniture without telling me first.  I think she is just kidding because so far, she lets me know ahead of time. I guess when I start bumping into things that seem out of place, I will know I’m in trouble.

As I go through my daily activities, I am open to reconsidering how I do what I do.  I may find a better way to accomplish my tasks or a more convenient place for items in my surroundings.  The challenge then becomes remembering what has changed until it, in turn, becomes part of my routine.

As I consider the world at large, I am amazed how resistant many people are to change. It is as though acknowledging a better procedure, idea or perspective somehow diminishes who they have been.  To me, life is all about continually learning and becoming better.  If we consider the physical world around us, it is clear that when living things stop changing, they begin dying.

Nowhere is this resistance to change more evident than in our view of our nation’s future.  The major political parties seem to embody philosophical perspectives that are polar opposites. What we are currently witnessing is more than a struggle between political parties.  It is the clash of mutually exclusive cosmic concepts.

If we embrace the Bible as the complete and inerrant communication from a divine creator, then the only necessary change would be a realignment of those who are spiritually and morally out of sync with the precepts contained in that sacred text.  Of course, embedded in this statement is the source of all religious conflict because there is no consensus among diverse factions regarding what those precepts are. Nevertheless, the implication is that there is some form of perfection that has been established by God and man’s challenge is identifying and conforming to it.

This perspective seems to have been generalized to our nation.  There appears to be a sense that our founding fathers were somehow so divinely inspired that they established a perfect social order that should not be tampered with.  Pointing out the tremendous flaws in our country’s history is considered by many to be unpatriotic.  This defensive attitude seems to be based upon a sanitized historical sentiment that reflects national selective amnesia.

When I first heard the call to “Make America Great Again” my first reaction was to ask what greatness they are referencing. Were we great when we enslaved Africans?  Were we great as we engaged in genocide against native Americans?  Perhaps we were great when women were physically assaulted and jailed for demonstrating on behalf of their voting rights. What greatness was evident when multitudes of Japanese Americans were interned during WWII and forced to abandon their homes and businesses?

MAGA is a perfect political slogan.  It lacks specificity and allows supporters to view that “greatness” in their own way.  It implies that there was an ideal time in our national history from which we have strayed.  Like the garden of Eden, this new appeal suggests that liberals have caused us to abandon our perfect nation and only a conservative political party can enable us to reclaim it.

However, for those who perceive the universe as an evolving phenomenon, change is an integral aspect of an unfolding process of trial and error.  As we view the progressive complexification of life on our planet, we can observe the benefit of adaptation and refinement.  It follows that what is true of the physical aspects of organisms also applies to the social development of humanity.

From this perspective, what our founding fathers accomplished was to conceive and begin a political and social experiment in democracy. It was a brilliant beginning but by no means perfect.  Every subsequent generation has had the responsibility of cultivating, evaluating and redirecting the future of our nation. 

There is no need to hide from our past.  We have accomplished outstanding feats and engaged in reprehensible injustices. The progressive party is seeking to build upon our successes, acknowledge our misdeeds and strive to embody our noble ideals and aspirations.

May we avoid pretending that we are, or ever have been, what we wish we could be. Change is inevitable.  Let us hope that it is not merely accidental, haphazard or overly aggressive.  Change that is planned, constructive and gradual can be an open opportunity to an outstanding future.  If we drop all of the bickering and strife, we can work together to make America greater than it has ever been.

 

Tao Te Ching

From a translation by S. Mitchell

61

When a country obtains great power,

it becomes like the sea:

all streams run downward into it.

The more powerful it grows,

the greater the need for humility.

Humility means trusting the Tao,

thus, never needing to be defensive.

 

A great nation is like a great man:

When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.

Having realized it, he admits it.

Having admitted it, he corrects it.

He considers those who point out his faults

as his most benevolent teachers.

He thinks of his enemy

as the shadow that he himself casts.

 

If a nation is centered in the Tao,

if it nourishes its own people

and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,

it will be a light to all nations in the world.