I know that some people find change difficult whereas others, like me, find it stimulating, writes Peter Massey. Frankly those two groups need each other as checks and balances. However, I also occasionally come across a group of people who would like things to change but are too kind and do not want to upset others who, for whatever reason, resist change.
I am reminded of the apocryphal story of a new vicar who approached a long established church warden. “I bet you have seen many changes,” said the vicar. “Yes,” replied the warden, “and I have resisted every one of them!”
So here is a story by Anthony de Mello from his book ‘The Heart of the Enlightened’: ‘Owing to a variety of circumstances, the egg of an eagle found its way to one corner of a barn where a hen was hatching her eggs.
In time the little eaglet was hatched with the other chickens.
Now as time passed, the fledgling, quite unaccountably, began to experience a longing to fly. So it would say to its mother, the hen, “When shall I learn to fly?”
The poor hen was quite aware of the fact that she could not fly and hadn’t the slightest notion of what other birds did to train their fledglings in the art of flight. But she was ashamed to confess this inadequacy, so she would say, “Not yet my child, not yet. I shall teach you when you are ready.”
Months passed and the young eagle began to suspect that its mother did not know how to fly. But it could not get itself to break loose and fly on its own, for its keen longing to fly had become confused with the gratitude it experienced toward the bird that had hatched it.’
Many of us may, sometimes without thinking, behave like the mother hen—restricting others because what they are talking about is beyond our experience. I pray that this will never be the case among our churches as we explore what it is to be a missionary church of the Twenty First Century.
Peter Massey