The Tyranny of Change (ATW)
THE TYRANNY OF CHANGE
There are many things we want to be liberated from, many kinds of tyranny from which we would like to escape, but one of the inescapable ones is the tyranny of change. (I didn’t make up that idea. I got it from Paul, reading the Phillips’ translation of Romans 8:20-21.)
Most of us are ambivalent about change. We say, “Let’s do this for a change,” and in the next breath moan, “Oh dear, how things have changed! They’re just not the same anymore.” Lots of people do things purely for the sake of doing something different. And one of the ironies is that things don’t necessarily turn out to be all that fresh and original after all.
I don’t like change very much. I am not always moving the furniture around. I don’t want any “bright new taste surprises” for breakfast. I want the sofa where it was yesterday and the black coffee just the way I always make it.
It was reassuring to me to learn that C. S. Lewis also liked monotony and routine. Urged time and again to journey abroad to lecture, he stayed home and smoked his pipe and lectured where he felt he belonged. He also wrote wonderful things and remained content with familiar surroundings, able to draw on deep inner resources.
We need not be always seeking something different, something other, out of mere restlessness. There are enough changes we cannot stop, which are of the essence of this life and are meant to be. They are meant to drive us to God.
The world of creation, said Paul, has, in God’s purpose, been given hope. “And the hope is that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God.”