Don’t resist change — we’ve been working toward it
Nothing ever doesn’t stop changing. That’s the part we hate the most, really. We always fear the future and grieve the loss of the past. Often simultaneously. It’s our nature to do so. We both pray for and curse change in all forms.
It’s my impression that the reason we resist change is because once we start getting what we asked for, with it comes all the things we never realized we’d have to endure in order to get what we asked for. The side effects of change are the parts about which we are the most resistant. So that shall be where our focus goes.
Resistance is the red flag we are looking for. Wherever we feel resistance, justified or not, we should immediately start paying close attention to that relationship. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be about a relationship between two people, or with people at all. It can be our resistant relationship with a concept, or an entire culture. We often struggle with our relationship with the descendants of our enemies. That’s a complicated one. It’s more about our relationship with history than people.
When you are resisting something, give thanks immediately when you notice it, because that notice is a gateway to a much larger understanding — of yourself, in particular, but many other things as well. Approach your resistance to things and people with humility, and always assume that you only know a fraction of the truth about them. We are each so complex, that we often only know a fraction of truth about ourselves. How can we possibly know more of others? Remain open and humble, hard as it is to be either. Place your attentive focus on change itself. Think of change as an angel with an agenda of benevolence. Endeavor to work with it rather than resist it. Being at peace while on constantly shifting ground is not an easy thing. In fact, only the most peaceful can manage it. But Nirvana is not our goal here. Lightening our burden in any way we can is our goal. Put your heart at ease to whatever degree you can manage.
What does it look like to be at ease? What does it feel like? I feel on a good day I have some flashes of it, the sense of ease I’m describing. I usually gauge my sense of inner peace, however, based on the appearance of other people’s outer peace. In case you didn’t notice, that’s a flawed approach. Never judge your insides by the appearance of other people’s outsides. But I catch myself doing it. That’s what spiritual life practices teach us to notice and then counteract with different, better, more productive and loving thoughts.
Can you imagine finding ways of being at peace with some of what we are seeing in the world today? That’s not to say we shouldn’t move toward accomplishing a better world in every way manageable. But the attitude we hold while doing that great work determines the harm or benefit those actions will have upon us as individuals. Must we sacrifice our well-being, or even our lives, for the sake of social progress? I don’t think that’s the plan for us. I think the plan is for us is to find ways of rising above our fear and rage to accomplish the change we seek with ease and an awareness of the inherent benevolence beneath, silently informing the divisive contrast occurring on the surface.
We have yet to imagine a way that we can understand and know the change we seek without first going through the motions of destroying its opposite. We think that the new day we want will be here once we have murdered all the old days. As if there’s only room on the calendar for one. If we sought to embrace the full continuum of human progress, from our earliest hunter-gatherer days to today, rather than rewrite, whitewash or even erase our history, we can better accept the past with humility.
A significant component of the reason we resist change is because part of that process is the natural reckoning we must make with the mistakes we have made during earlier times. But it’s OK to own our mistakes. It’s OK to apologize for things our ancestors did. It proves our strength, not our weakness. Again, humility.
It would appear that humility is the underpinning theme of our successful nonresistance to change. To be more at peace with change, we must stop making assumptions about the purpose of the change we are experiencing as well as the purpose of the hardships we suffer for them. There is great purpose here. Be at peace with it.
Spend time seeking to be comfortable. Calm yourself with thoughts that all shall be well. Seek to help others be at ease. Soothe humanity, and still the waters. Breathe into the sails of the change we’ve been asking for, praying for, working toward, rallying and crying and dying for. That change is here.
Wil Darcangelo, M. Div., is the minister at First Parish UU Church of Fitchburg and of First Church of Christ Unitarian in Lancaster. He is the producer of The UU Virtual Church of Fitchburg and Lancaster on YouTube and host of the Our Common Dharma podcast series. Email wildarcangelo@gmail.co m..com.