Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, November 24, 2009

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelli-
gent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

- Charles Darwin. His “Origin of Species” was published on this date, 1859


Jesus is a good example – of a being open to change. Specifically, a human being who understood that greatness was in “service to others in love”. It is one of the chief reasons that I can relate to Jesus. Tyrannical control simply does not make for great human beings. Vulnerability, I was almost stunned to understand, is the Path to Greatness. The early Christians edited a lot out of the story of Jesus of Nazareth – I’m glad this thread persisted! It sounds of truth to the listening ears of the Intuition, of the Heart.

A smile often comes to my face when I think of “the church”. Why has the church not learned the “important lesson”? The truth is that spiritual maturity eschews “worldly” power and embraces Gospel vulnerability. Is it because we are not able, or not taught, to bear the suffering that will inevitably come our way as we oppose the World’s System? But friends, rejecting the World’s power is what all the great religious teachers have taught! Are we not able to hoist this truth in because of our Greed, our Insecurity? I think of all those things Jesus is reported to have said, about “winning the World and losing our Soul”.

The “church” (be it Christian or Jewish or Islam or other) finds it very difficult to change. Look at the situation between “Rome” and “Anglicanism”. Rome has not forgotten the stinging rejection of the Reformation, nor has it gotten over the collapse of the Roman empire, choosing to live as a ghostly shadow of that earthly Kingdom. And Anglicanism has never transcended its sense of inferiority. Rome is now “getting back”, and Anglicanism is slowly choosing further to embrace a deep inner sense of inferiority, rejecting it’s gift from the Spirit of Change.

The spiritual lesson is clear: Change! Change is a given of Life – and we can either be a part of it or resist it. Yes, of course, we have work to do. We have to think and pray and meditate. We must accept the responsibility of being human. And we must make the decisions we are challenged to make. We must commit to discerning to what we think is Truth. And then Act.

It is true in the material world that only those who change survive. It is even truer of the Heart.

Brian+