we cannot change unless we mourn

Suffering occurs when your ideas about how things ought to be don't match how they really are. Brad Warner, Hardcore Zen (p. 58).

http://www.imow.org/exhibitions/past?id=21#slide7

To change we must die, and if we die we must mourn.

In many of our discussions surrounding the church today, the big buzzword is change. From Brian McLaren's and Phyllis Tickle discussing new forms of ecclesiology and faith that are emerging, Harvey Cox discussing the Future of Faith, or various conferences and discussion talking about the changing landscape of faith and belief, it is clear that the idea that Christianity is undergoing some kind of transformation is loud and clear.

I have heard countless talks and discussions about "What we need to do" to "change" the church and have heard many people dismayed when such changes do not happen. There are calls to change now and do it quickly by some, while others resist such change defaulting to a more conservative position with respect to doing something different or becoming a different kind of church that we cannot yet truly define.

On a smaller level, individuals will express change in their own view of the world as they interact with a wider diversity of persons through social media and meet more people from different contexts at conferences and meetings all over the world. In all of the both gung-ho and downright depressing discussions about change, one element seems to be missing without which change is an ideal, a phantasm that won't truly take root. That element is death.

When we change, when our societies change, we become different people. When a 5 year old goes off to kindergarten, you should expect an accelerated change as your child develops within new peer groups and social structures. When an adolescent becomes an adult the physical and psychological transformation that occurs is awkward and downright painful at times. Getting married, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood, getting a new job, having children, experiencing the death of a loved one: all of these are moments of transition and change in life. It is natural to resist these changes and transformation because even when they are joyful times, they are tinged with at least a hint of sorrow. Those moments of change that are more negative are downright painful and in some cases are difficult to move beyond. Like a sailboat in irons, the one going through the change is stuck at sea only to be battered by the wind and waves.

Why is it that change is so painful and so aversive? I hear many who are more in favor of changing church systems and theology to meet the needs of new generations dismiss those who resist change because they are "afraid and need to get over it." Perhaps the real question is, "If you are afraid of change, what is it that you are afraid of?" The truth is that fear is an all too natural response to change. Change creates anxiety because one is caught between an unformed "now," a "past" that no longer truly exists, and a "future" that often looks like the edge of a cliff. Fear is natural because it is your self working often subconsciously to keep you alive.

The truth is that death and change are inextricable. Change means a death of something. In this case it means a death of who you once were, and of who your community once was in the process of becoming something different. Before change is even a remote possibility, we in the church who desire it have to be willing to die. We need to be willing to die to what we currently are in order to be something we are not. Moreover, it's a death that cannot happen overnight, but slowly, with a lot of anxiety, and with "birth pangs" as Jesus once remarked in Matthew 24. Death is a hard sell and there is little in the human condition that accepts death as an option.

What about those among us who have already encountered such spiritual and psychological death? There are many walking dead among us who sit in the pews as aliens who keep their lack of faith quiet. Rather than be ostracized from their religious community, they keep their lack of faith in it quiet. They are invisible and look just like everyone else who is having a good time at the potluck or the passing of the peace. But they are in the process of a transformation that their churches cannot hold and nurture.

The best thing we can do is allow ourselves to mourn the death of what we once were in order to be born again as the new creation that has been begging to come out and see the world as it is. Hanging on to ideals of what "ought" to be is like running into a busy highway. If we desire change, or if we already sense that we have changed, we must allow ourselves to die. And from dying we must give ourselves the time and care to mourn what we once were. If we do not do this, we risk the ghosts of our previous selves chasing us down whispering fear and shame in our minds. To change we must die, and if we die we must mourn.