Change?

Ministerial Meandering

Change

Recently, one of my flock sent me a 23 minute clip of ancient Native wisdom on the subject of change.

Being a little on the Far Side of Middle Age, I have some idea of what change entails, but what I learned from this nugget of wisdom was that I have often been looking at it from the wrong perspective.

For most of us, change is both a challenge and uncomfortable, because it is designed to take us out of our comfort zone, and into a new land.  We may have some idea of where we are going, or what we are going to be, but in most cases we will be wrong - at least in detail, if not in greater substance.  So - honestly - we don’t know what lies ahead, and so we are uncomfortable.

The elder describing the process touched on so many of the feelings that I have at present - as we attempt to move continents to France - that I was profoundly moved by his insight.  He described the sense of everything falling apart, and chaos creeping in - though he didn’t use the word ‘chaos’.  He talked about ‘moulting’, like a snake shedding its old skin, and being acutely uncomfortable until he had got out of it, and reappeared in his new one.  The old skin is tight and itchy, and doesn’t fit any more - we need to break free of it.

I thought perhaps that this wasn’t as good an image as that of the chrysalis, which must be burst for a completely new creature to emerge.  The idea of the snake in his new skin suggesting to me that we just reappear as a newer version of our old self, whereas the grub in the chrysalis emerges to be a beautiful new moth or butterfly - unrecognisable from the old creature entirely.

Perhaps what impressed me even more than his imagery was his description of the feelings that come along with the need for change.

In addition to the sense of one’s life falling apart, comes the combination of losing focus or interest in old routines, a sense of flatness which is often felt as depression, but which he described as a clearing away of the old to make way for the new.  It is not that you no longer enjoy what you are doing, but that it seems as though you know deep inside that it is time for it to come to an end.

The elder also noted that these feelings are often combined with a sense of intolerance.  [I have always had a problem with tolerance.]  He talked of putting more and more onto a shelf until one more small thing causes it to break - it has reached its capacity.  He says this is the soul saying, “No more.”

He talked too of solitude - and the need for it.  One cannot transform in public; the work of becoming is like that planting of a seed - it needs darkness and solitude to grow in the earth.  He spoke of his grandmother going away by herself for a time, and, when asked what she did, told him that she went deep into herself to listen.  That’s as good a description of prayer as you could want.

Lastly, he mentioned that it must be felt within us; he described a sort of inner trembling, which he said had happened three times in his life.

I don’t know how many times it has happened in my life - but I certainly feel it now.  Maybe we as a church collectively feel it too.

Philip+