Tag Archives: peace

Change

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There is an old saying that “change is inevitable.”  I suppose that is right, and I know that every major scientist from Galileo to Einstein would agree, since we are on a rock that is circling the sun even when we are sitting perfectly still (impossible to do), we are in motion and thus there is constant change around us.  Their point is well taken, each new day has a different period of daytime than the previous, the temperature changes every day and night; humidity, wind speed – the list of measurements can go on forever, and they will all support the old saying about change. So the outside environment changes constantly, not only where you are, but from place to place as well.  For instance, six days ago I was standing on a warm beach, it was 85 degrees outside, and the humidity was 75%.  Today at home, it is a not-so-balmy 45 degrees and raining.  (That is a weather change that I could do without!)  When you ride a motorcycle, the temperature can change dramatically every minute as you move from shade to sun.  How about inside changes, are they inevitable as well?  I know this; it must have been the external environmental factors, probably humidity, that caused all of my clothing to shrink while on vacation, because everything fit tighter going home than when we arrived.  Some changes we consider good, and look forward to its arrival, and some we fight, not wanting that aspect of our life to change.  Certain changes we wait to happen, and there are some important matters that will never change.  For instance:

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Free Fall

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Imagine you are in a small plane, flying at 10,000 feet above South Placer County.  It is a clear autumn morning, the sun is up but only producing a brisk 58 degrees; there is a moment of white on the Sierra Nevada Mountains, signaling the first of many snow storms had arrived last night.  Dressed in jeans, tennis shoes and a tee shirt (if you are a girl, the outfit matches; if a guy, then you don’t care), you can feel the cold outside the plane, which is ten degrees lower than on the valley floor.  You slide open the passenger door of the four passenger Piper; the wind instantly tears through the interior creating a tornado like effect with the few papers on the dash.  The velocity of the chilled air striking your bear arms makes you believe you now know what it must feel like to be lost in a blizzard – in a bathing suit.  (You were always one for drama!).  Unbuckling your seat belt, you send a nod to the pilot, place both feet on the door threshold, and jump.  In less than a second, the plane is a distant memory.

As Newton predicted, you fall towards the earth accelerating at 32 feet per second.  Depending upon your weight, and position while dropping, you will reach terminal velocity in 7-10 seconds.  This is the point where your descent speed can no longer increase, but remains constant at about 125 miles per hour due to the friction of the surrounding air.  Kind of a good news / bad news story: you’re not falling any faster, but you are falling real fast. It will take another minute to find the ground, but a lot can happen in a minute.

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Hook Up The Plow Horse

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If you were a farmer 100 years ago, you might have used a plow horse to pull the metal plow to turn and mix the soil until it was sufficiently prepared to plant the seeds.  The horse was meant to do the bulk of the labor; dragging the heavy plow through good soil and bad, while the farmer kept the horse in a straight line.  A plow horse didn’t have to move swiftly to be considered good at its job, it needed to be consistent and dependable; always moving forward toward its goal, without much complaining or urging – a good plow horse wanted to plow the field.  It knew every morning that the day would bring some rocky, dry, hard spots and, some places that were level and smooth; but, it didn’t matter, the plow horse would work its way through all of it, under the carful guidance of its farmer.

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Good News

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In old movies, there was often a part where a man was sitting on the sidewalk leaning against a worn building, wearing torn clothes that supported several days of dirt, would ask a passerby, “Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?”  After the horrifying news this week coming from London about the crime, violence, and complete disregard for human dignity, the starvation in Africa, and the emotional turmoil created by the inept political and financial management of our nation’s resources, today I think the same guy would ask, “Hey buddy, can you spare some good news?”  Even if the person walking past had some good news, he might have chosen to keep it for himself, knowing that more good news would be hard to find; as if sharing good news might dilute its affect.  Or maybe, the guy walking and sitting both needed to look deeper, inside them and outside, to find that elusive good news.

This was one of those weeks where powering on any devise that linked you to world events was a risk.  Seeing the truth of what we humans can do, or accept as justifiable, was difficult; unless one took a long moment to find some of the good that was deeply hidden in all of the bad.  That’s where we enter the conversation.  As Christians we are called to find the good of the moment, and if we are able – to be the good in the moment; it is up to us to paint the silver lining on the dark cloud.  I do not suggest that we bathe ourselves in naivety; turning away from reality so as to not see what is wrong.  No, instead we must tune our eyes and ears (and our hearts) to the frequency of what is good, compassionate, and human; we must find the people, who in the midst of darkness exhibit a flicker of light.

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