There’s been a lot of talk around UUCC about change lately, especially as we’ve gotten the results of the survey and cottage meetings from the search committee, and in the Beyond Categorical Thinking session led by Rev. Keith Kron two Saturdays ago, as well as his sermon on the Future of Religion. During that session, I was reminded of a long-ago experience of witnessing someone else handle change.
My father was a complex person. Two years into his Journalism degree at Cornell, he decided to switch to Civil Engineering – a five-year degree program he completed in three, graduating third in his class. A marvelous accomplishment by any measure, but if you knew my dad, you might think it was just short of miraculous. You see, my father had an intense aversion to change. But I later came to understand that the near paralyzing change-induced anxiety he experienced was mainly the result of externally imposed change.
He was recognized internationally for his achievements in fracture mechanics, focusing on developing testing standards to predict flaws in the high-strength steel alloys used to build nuclear reactor pressure vessels – the component in which the fission creates heat to produce power. Unfortunately, he would often apply the same rigor to the potential flaws he saw in the inevitable changes that everyday life often brings, and his reaction was akin to the nuclear kind.
As a very young boy, I remember sitting in the car with him at the sole traffic light in our small town shortly after laws that allowed right turns at red lights had been passed. With great exasperation, he exclaimed, “JESUS CHRIST PEDESTRIANS ARE GOING TO GET RUN OVER RIGHT AND LEFT!” To my knowledge, pedestrians did adapt and learn to look for turning cars before they crossed the street, and my father’s fears were not borne out on a large scale. In retrospect, I’ve come to understand that he was not unlike many of us who reluctantly face change, instead preferring the status quo because it is “the devil you know….”
I often have to remind myself to muster the courage to face change that I fear could be detrimental when it is designed to be beneficial. Many times, I feel that my courage has been rewarded, my fears have been exaggerated, and I have experienced growth as a result. If you see yourself faced with change you can’t avoid, I wish you the courage and optimism to persevere and grow through it.
In time, my father probably turned right on red many times, enjoying the newfound improvement in the efficiency of his travels, embracing the change as if he welcomed it all along.
In faith,
-Kurt