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As we continue to try to build a just beloved community, I find that one of the most difficult aspects of our time together is dealing with change. Whether the results of change are positive or negative, the process is challenging. I hear myself often asking the question: God, why is change so hard? The answer I get back most frequently is that if change were easy, then there would be no room in your life for God. When I worked as a mental health counselor, I often saw people who struggled to make changes in their lives, even when the changes would bring them a healthier life. I have spoken with people who have had alcohol problems who say that it wasn’t until they “hit bottom” that they decided to make a change in their drinking addiction. Efforts to change their health for the better earlier in their lives often resulted in a relapse.
So, I decided to explore the dynamics of change and to try to better understand the role of God in my life, which helped me to make the changes I needed to make. I often turn to scripture to help inform me. The biblical story of change most helpful for me was the story of the Exodus. Moses and the people escaped from Egypt and when the going got rough in the wilderness, what was it that they wanted to do? They wanted to go back to Egypt? Really, back to captivity? But their response was, at least we had bread and water. Out there in the wilderness they didn’t know where the next meal was coming from. Nothing was familiar. Change was so challenging for them. (I believe that is why the Israelites wanted to return to Egypt: Even knowing that they would again be enslaved, they felt safe with the familiar.)
First thing I discerned is that change requires accepting that we have to give up what was previously, in order to move out into an unknown future. We have to accept loss and the grief that accompanies it. Now you might say, I lost my favorite baseball glove, and does grief accompany that loss? You bet it does. We don’t only experience grief at the time of death. When you have to break in that new baseball glove, don’t you think about the fact that you would not have to be doing this breaking in if you still had your old glove? And isn’t that the glove your grandfather gave you when you turned 10 years old and grandpa is no longer with you? Loss of any kind is accompanied by grief—a complicated and individualized experience for each person as well as the community as a whole.
The first step then requires us to let go and leave behind that which was known and then move into the unknown, the wilderness, which is the second step of change. The unknown is just that—unknown. When we don’t know what is happening or who or what and sometimes, why, we have no control. When we have no control, we experience anxiety that arises out of the fear that we may not survive. God has given us anxiety to recognize when we are in danger and need to do whatever it is to protect ourselves. To spend time in this wilderness place is very unsettling and we want to move to a place in which we can again feel safe. This is where conflict can often happen as we can’t agree on how to create that safe place. The Hebrew people were so afraid that they went as far as abandoning their God when Moses, with God’s set of Commandments, did not come down from the mountain in a timely manner. They built a golden idol to worship, believing that this other god would save them. Three hundred and sixty-five times the Bible tells us, “Be not afraid.”
The third step that we experience as a part of change is to move to the endpoint that was identified as the goal for the change in the first place. In this step we live with new anxiety and anticipation of what can be, not knowing whether the goal, the “promised land,” was what we thought it would be. When we look at these steps – grief and loss, fear and anxiety, conflict, and anxious anticipation, why would anyone of us want to go through all that to experience change?
We know from the scriptures that it was God who provided for the Israelites to help them move forward to the promised land. God provided manna, dew and quail for food. God provided a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night so that the Israelites would not lose their way in the wilderness. God gave them a new set of rules on those tablets helping them to live as a faithful and free community in their new environment. God delivered them to the promised land and did not abandon them in their new home. God was with them every step of the way and provided for them and delivered them to freedom. And they were never alone. God was with them!
Now we might think of this as the end of the story, but it is not. In his book Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, William Bridges says that change brings about transition. Transition is the hard work of living with the newness in our lives. If you move to a new community, you have to do the work of meeting new people; you lose a baseball glove, you have to break in a new glove; a new baby is born in your home and you need to make room for this new life. Bridges goes on to say, “For it is only in the context of the transition process that endings hold personal meaning and open the gate to our own transformation.” I believe this to be true for individuals as well as corporately as we live in community.
It is God with us, it is God within us, it is God who transforms us in those challenging spaces as change is occurs. What we need to do is open ourselves up to the hard work of change, even sometimes the suffering brought about by change, which allows us to be transformed and move forward. It also reminds us that, in community, we need to recognize this process, acknowledge the hard work and support one another as we allow God to do God’s part in the process of transition and transformation. Therein lies our hope for the future of the Beloved Community.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu shared the story about his challenge dealing with apartheid. He said he was at a retreat to talk about this challenge when it was time for a break. During the break he walked into the garden of the retreat center and sat down. It was there a brown wooden cross caught his eye. When he saw it, his inner voice said, if Jesus could be crucified and resurrected, know that God will provide and apartheid will end. He reported that he returned to his meeting letting go of his fear and having a new hope, a hope that changed him and changed the tone of his meeting. Apartheid did end 10 years later and justice came to those who were oppressed. And Tutu never gave up that hope.
Henri Nouwen says:
“Life, as many of us know, can actually be more difficult—when we choose to follow Jesus. Yet at the same time we gain a certain strength because we no longer live our life or our agony alone. We no longer live our struggle in isolation. We no longer live our pains as if nobody cares. Indeed, following Jesus means walking in his path, taking steps behind the One who shows us the way in our dark, broken, painful world. Following Jesus means to live our life in companionship with One who understands us fully.…Following Jesus means a life in communion, with a guide.”
Questions for reflection:
- What has been your experience with change? Individually? Corporately?
- How do you understand transformation? Individually? Corporately?
- What are examples in which change and transformation has brought about justice?
- Are there biblical texts that help you to make changes and allow the process of transformation to take place?
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