Ruminations: Change

Change

Our theme for the month of November is Change. The colors of our landscape are changing, the time is changing this Sunday (remember to set your clocks back!), and so many individual changes are happening in our lives.

Our Community Affiliated Minister, Rev. Rina Shere, will lead worship on November 13, exploring how moral injury can be transformed and repaired in people’s lives. Like many UU congregations, we’ll share a Bread Ceremony together on November 20. After that, we’ll explore some of the change we’re inviting and creating in our congregation on November 27.

This Sunday, we begin with the realization that change brings grief. Even if what’s changing is something we’re really looking forward to, we might feel some grief for what we’re leaving behind. (I remember feeling grief even when what I was letting go of wasn’t so wonderful!)

That feeling of loss—or even the fear that we might feel a powerful sense of loss—can keep us from welcoming and celebrating new things in our lives. For some of us, the possibility of change also brings up some other unpleasant emotions.

I realized this recently when I used the word transformation with a small group of people. For me, transformation is an inspiring and exciting word. It means bringing new possibilities into being. Manifesting something beautiful that goes beyond current reality.

For some people, though, the idea of being transformed means that they’re not good enough just as they are. They figure, if they need some kind of transformation in their lives, they must not be worthy right now. Which is the last thing I intend to imply with the word transformation.

There was resistance to the idea of change, because welcoming change meant admitting they were unworthy or unlovable or unacceptable. When I realized this fear, I started using the word evolution in place of the word transformation. For some people, it’s easier to say that we are worthy and lovable and acceptable right now in this moment and also that we are always in a process of evolving and growing and… changing.

As we engage in this idea of change throughout the month (and beyond), you might be aware of some inner resistance about welcoming change. Maybe we can help one another remember that we all have inherent worth and dignity—that there’s nothing we have to prove or earn in that department.

We can also remind one another that being imperfect is part of being human. None of us will ever be such an enlightened embodiment of our values that we’re just done evolving. It isn’t that we have to change in order to be worthy. It’s that we have the opportunity to change in order to welcome greater wholeness and well-being in our lives and in the world around us.

If we are willing to remind one another about our unquestionable worth and also our unquestionable room to grow, we might be able to grieve alongside one another more fully, welcome change evolution in our personal lives, and celebrate what we co-create together as a community.