Blog 2211 – 11.06.2021
“Change Your Mind, The Rest Will Follow”
Some years ago the saying above in quotes was popular with young people grown impatient with the slow rate of real progress. Our country and our world seems more than ever to be divided between the Conservative and the Liberal or Progressive view points. Jesus once had a private meeting, one on one, with a certain rich conservative. The older man asked the young rabbi, “What must do to live forever?” Jesus answered, “You must be born again.” The grown man must have chuckled at the audacity of a barely thirty something suggesting that he go back to square one and start over. Elsewhere Jesus clarifies what he meant by being “born again” and similar words, “You must become as a little child” when he says, “Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good, excellent, perfect will of God.”
Probably one of the most wonderful abilities of children is how quickly they are able to change their minds. The older we get the more difficult that becomes for many of us. I believe that the Universe is ever presenting us challenging opportunities to encourage us to do just that, to change our minds. The second of the Ten Intentions for a Better World is perhaps the hardest for many folks to get their minds around. It reads:
Change is so hard for many of us because we resist and fight it tooth and nail.
In the beginning of the book of Acts is the story of a young conservative Jew who had an especially hard time with the new teachings that Jesus had introduced. Saul even held the coats of those who stoned to death Stephen for testifying to a better way than the old ways. The young old man, Saul, made it his mission to do his best to smother this new baby religion in its cradle.
The story goes that on a particular mission to Damascus to stamp out what he believed was just a new heresy that Saul was blinded by the light and changed his mind, his course and even his name to Paul. He had once thought a big man like King Saul, head and shoulders taller than most men was looked up to, but learned a small Paul could inspire more to follow the new religion called simply The Way. Jesus challenged his wrong headed thinking as he traveled on the wrong road and said to him, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” The idiom is about the practice of using sharp sticks to help guide sheep along the right path.
It is commonly thought these days that everything new is part of a great conspiracy to rob us of our personal freedom to choose. So many people seem only to want to return to the dark ages or to relive some mythical “good ole days.” They want to ignore and rant against all progress. Words like ignore and rant (ignorant) do not inspire me.
When I look in the mirror these days I see an old man staring back at me, but I smile when I remember a much younger version of that fellow who wanted to change the world. He still does, one mind at a time, beginning with his own.
Wanna change the world? Change your mind, just a little change, and wondrous things result. I believe the Universe is not conspiring against us, but forever inspiring us with challenging situations not to make better fighters out of us, but to convince us to change our minds and live forever young at heart.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
Young At Heart
theencouragingword 