Stability and change
06/05/16 05:27
The pace of change is not a steady process. Change comes in fits and starts and often follows long periods of stability. Sometimes there are dramatic events that change the course of the story of our people. Here in Rapid City we still think in terms of before and after the dramatic flood of 1972. A lot of years have gone by, but those dramatic and traumatic summer weeks reshaped our community’s appearance and its attitude. There are some who remember the power of community and the strength of everyone pulling together with a common cause as a positive part of an event that was also filled with loss and grief. Our community still makes a bit of distinction between those who were here and survived the flood and those of us who came after the flood. It isn’t very conscious and it doesn’t involve any lack of welcome or any discrimination, it is just a reality. Some people shared tragedy and rebuilding and others came after that event.
The people of New Orleans fall into several categories more than a decade after Hurricane Katrina devastated their city. Some perished. Some survived the hurricane but never returned to the city. Some came back. Some have moved in since the hurricane. Everyone can acknowledge that the event shaped the entire city and the present is in part the product of dramatic changes that occurred in a single week in August of 2005.
I suspect that the fires of 2016 will be part of the stories of the people of Fort McMurray in Alberta. Some will choose not to return after losing everything in the uncontrollable wildfires.Others will rebuild. The fire has already left divisions in its wake as some homes escaped the flames while others are only smoldering piles of rubble. There are still plenty of people who don’t know which category their home falls into.
Some events take a few more years, and perhaps even centuries to occur, but when you look back you can determine periods of rapid change and periods when things were pretty much the same.
Around the Aleutian Islands and up the Western shore of what is now Alaska, people lived a subsistence lifestyle hunting their food from skin-on-frame kayaks, constructing simple shelters to protect themselves from harsh winters, and living off of a land that is extreme in many ways. That basic style of life was going on thousands of years ago. While the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, employed in the construction of gigantic pyramids, indigenous peoples of the north took to the seas in human-powered boats and hunted seals and walrus. As the Roman Empire rose and fell the people were surviving with the same tools and ways of living. Europeans spent centuries at war with each other while Inupiaq and Unangan raised their children to paddle and hunt from hand-made boats. Then the big change came for those people. In a matter of 200 years - a long time for an individual, but a short time in the span of history, the culture has been transformed into one where kayaks are very rarely the means of obtaining subsistence. The people are no longer isolated from the rest of the world. They are connected by television and Internet and cell phone. They have access to tools and cultural influences from other parts of the world. Their culture has shifted dramatically and, from what is currently observable, will never go back to the way things were for thousands of years.
History does not follow a steady line. Change does not come at a measured pace.
Those of us who work with institutions that began before our arrival and will continue after our departure need to keep reminding ourselves that there are at once forces that require change and forces that desire stability. Change for the sake of change can become meaningless, but the refusal to change can cause decline. Periods of dramatic change need to be mixed with periods of relative calm. The changes we desire sometimes come at a predictable pace and other times occur in timescales different from our own.
I’ve been watching change in the church for all of my adult life. There are many things that I take for granted these days that I could not have imagined 30 or 40 years ago. I can be surprised by the changes, but I am also surprised by the things that have remained the same. Many of the changes are the result of the institutional church going in directions that I did not expect. Choices of leadership have gone differently than I predicted. I am still mystified that the first denomination to ordain a woman as a full minister back in 1853 still has never elected a woman as general minister and president of the denomination. I expected such a decision decades ago. I don’t think I could have imagined the consolidation of governance and the formation of hierarchical structures in the national setting of the church when I was beginning my service as a pastor.
I know the institutional church still holds surprises for me as I live my history within the wider story of the life of the church.
Still, when I prepare my weekly sermons I am deeply aware that I am studying the same texts that pastors have studied for centuries. I am trying to explain the same concepts that others have struggled to explain before me. I belong to traditions that are far bigger than the span of my life. Although I am not sure that the people I serve always are aware of it, I work hard to make sure that my message is consistent with the teachings of our people.
As such it can be frustrating to encounter others who seem to be unaware or uneducated about the history of our faith. I know that I should welcome them as part of the change that I cannot yet perceive, but I resist because I see in them stories that are being repeated that do not need to be repeated.
And so I witness the unfolding story of our people. I tell the story in the language that I know. I understand that we are adding our own chapter to that story. It is, after all, a story that will continue for generations after our time.
The people of New Orleans fall into several categories more than a decade after Hurricane Katrina devastated their city. Some perished. Some survived the hurricane but never returned to the city. Some came back. Some have moved in since the hurricane. Everyone can acknowledge that the event shaped the entire city and the present is in part the product of dramatic changes that occurred in a single week in August of 2005.
I suspect that the fires of 2016 will be part of the stories of the people of Fort McMurray in Alberta. Some will choose not to return after losing everything in the uncontrollable wildfires.Others will rebuild. The fire has already left divisions in its wake as some homes escaped the flames while others are only smoldering piles of rubble. There are still plenty of people who don’t know which category their home falls into.
Some events take a few more years, and perhaps even centuries to occur, but when you look back you can determine periods of rapid change and periods when things were pretty much the same.
Around the Aleutian Islands and up the Western shore of what is now Alaska, people lived a subsistence lifestyle hunting their food from skin-on-frame kayaks, constructing simple shelters to protect themselves from harsh winters, and living off of a land that is extreme in many ways. That basic style of life was going on thousands of years ago. While the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, employed in the construction of gigantic pyramids, indigenous peoples of the north took to the seas in human-powered boats and hunted seals and walrus. As the Roman Empire rose and fell the people were surviving with the same tools and ways of living. Europeans spent centuries at war with each other while Inupiaq and Unangan raised their children to paddle and hunt from hand-made boats. Then the big change came for those people. In a matter of 200 years - a long time for an individual, but a short time in the span of history, the culture has been transformed into one where kayaks are very rarely the means of obtaining subsistence. The people are no longer isolated from the rest of the world. They are connected by television and Internet and cell phone. They have access to tools and cultural influences from other parts of the world. Their culture has shifted dramatically and, from what is currently observable, will never go back to the way things were for thousands of years.
History does not follow a steady line. Change does not come at a measured pace.
Those of us who work with institutions that began before our arrival and will continue after our departure need to keep reminding ourselves that there are at once forces that require change and forces that desire stability. Change for the sake of change can become meaningless, but the refusal to change can cause decline. Periods of dramatic change need to be mixed with periods of relative calm. The changes we desire sometimes come at a predictable pace and other times occur in timescales different from our own.
I’ve been watching change in the church for all of my adult life. There are many things that I take for granted these days that I could not have imagined 30 or 40 years ago. I can be surprised by the changes, but I am also surprised by the things that have remained the same. Many of the changes are the result of the institutional church going in directions that I did not expect. Choices of leadership have gone differently than I predicted. I am still mystified that the first denomination to ordain a woman as a full minister back in 1853 still has never elected a woman as general minister and president of the denomination. I expected such a decision decades ago. I don’t think I could have imagined the consolidation of governance and the formation of hierarchical structures in the national setting of the church when I was beginning my service as a pastor.
I know the institutional church still holds surprises for me as I live my history within the wider story of the life of the church.
Still, when I prepare my weekly sermons I am deeply aware that I am studying the same texts that pastors have studied for centuries. I am trying to explain the same concepts that others have struggled to explain before me. I belong to traditions that are far bigger than the span of my life. Although I am not sure that the people I serve always are aware of it, I work hard to make sure that my message is consistent with the teachings of our people.
As such it can be frustrating to encounter others who seem to be unaware or uneducated about the history of our faith. I know that I should welcome them as part of the change that I cannot yet perceive, but I resist because I see in them stories that are being repeated that do not need to be repeated.
And so I witness the unfolding story of our people. I tell the story in the language that I know. I understand that we are adding our own chapter to that story. It is, after all, a story that will continue for generations after our time.