ANTICIPATING
CHANGE If you think you have been going around in circles, consider this. You are living on a spinning planet that makes a complete rotation once a day. Our planet whirls around a star once a year. That star moves through the galaxy at a fixed rate. Our galaxy moves through a curved universe as part of an eternal combustion system of expansion and contraction. So, with everything in a state of motion, it is understandable that we are dizzy at times. The Sufi master, Hazrat Inayat Khan, once wrote, "Walking on the turning wheel of the earth, living under the ever-rotating sun, man expects a peaceful life." However, the only thing that we can really expect is that 2007 will be different than 2006. Change is the only constant in the universe. Qoheleth, the pen-name of the author of the book of Ecclesiastes, believed that even with all the constant movement nothing ever changes under the sun. There is an element of truth to that. The more things change, the more things remain the same. The world-weariness of Ecclesiastes refuses to see anything new in the way of the world. When I visit some of our older members who have been around awhile, they agree with the Preacher because they have seen it all. Life for many seems to have been reduced to buttoning and unbuttoning, day after day, in endless repetition. The Chinese expression, "May you live in interesting times," is a blessing and a hope that your perspective and perception will constantly see the newness of life. The times are interesting because we choose to make them so. I realize that it is hard to see life in this way as we get older and the body doesn't respond to all our commands and arthritis limits our movements, and we see the infinite replays of wars, famines, natural disasters, and human violence, or hear the constant cacophony of the same rhetoric by an infinite parade of politicians. We've seen it all and we wonder if there is anything new under the sun. But the world is changing. Anticipate it. Welcome it. Encourage it. Embrace it. God gave a new world to Noah and the promise of ceaseless change. Even at the close of the age, God says, "Behold, I make all things new." Regardless of our chronological age, let us to continue "to explore the magnificent astonishment of living" and see the grace of God in all that God brings forth. The hokey-pokey is not what it's all about. Let us become a people of vision who are partners with God in the re-creation of the universe.
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