On Change

Change is difficult.

 It is a challenge in families, in businesses, in churches, in communities and in entire countries.

Generally, I like changes in certain areas of my life. I like technology changes. I just wish I had the money to keep up with them. Since I do not, I must develop some wisdom as to know when a change occurs in this area that will impact my life in a positive way.

I realize that as I age, I am supposed to resist change, but I have not developed that take on life yet. In my lifetime, most of the changes I have seen have been improvements in my life.

Yet, I must confess that for many people, it seems like the only change they welcome is changing the wet diaper of a baby. That will create relieve all around!

I recently came across an informal list of people afraid of innovation.

German writer Johann Georg Heinzmann, who warned people in 1795 about reading. He said that consuming words leads to a "weakening of the eyes, heat rashes, gout, arthritis, hemorrhoids, asthma, apoplexy, pulmonary disease, indigestion, blocking of the bowels, nervous disorder, migraines, epilepsy, hypochondria and melancholy." Be careful about reading! Kind of an odd concern for a writer to have.

Then, in 1803, preacher Jedidiah Morse said, "Let us guard against the insidious encroachments of innovation, that evil and beguiling spirit which is now stalking to and fro through the earth seeking whom he may destroy." Safe to say that he was not open to new forms of praise music in his Sunday services.

In 1854, author Henry David Thoreau criticized the construction of a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas. He said, "But Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."

In 1906, composer John Philip Sousa lamented that phonographs were causing "deterioration in American music."

In 1926, the Knights of Columbus warned that the telephone would "break up home life and the old practice of visiting friends."

About the same time, a dean at Princeton observed that cars were becoming a threat to America's young people. "The general effect of the automobile," wrote Howard McClenahan, "was to make the present generation look lightly at the moral code." He worried that youths with cars would begin to drive all over the place on Sundays ... everywhere but church.

Finally, in year 2008, The Atlantic magazine asked the question, "Is Google making us stupid?"

The jury is still out on that one.

Resistance to change is a constant in human life, even around innovations that have proved to be beneficial: Reading, telegraphs, phonographs, telephones, cars and the Internet. Yes, there are problems associated with each, but, on the whole, they have been a huge help to people around the world.

I am not suggesting that change is always good, of course. In my lengthening years on this earth, I could list some changes of which I am not so sure will prove helpful. That would be a quite different article, and maybe one worth exploring at another time. Personally, such reflections tend to make me feel pessimistic, and today, I do not want to go there. Right now, I feel a need to encourage the reader and the writer not to dismiss change too quickly. Consider a potential change prayerfully, being open to fresh winds from the Spirit.