What, Me Change?

 

There is a great scene at the beginning of the Red Green Show from a few years ago – well more than a few years now.  The show opened with a meeting of the Possum Lodge – a men-only organization in the fictional town of Possum Lake.  The members of the lodge take what must be the Possum Lodge Pledge (although I don’t think it was ever named that) which goes:

“I’m a man and I can change - if I have to - I guess.”

That is something men are notorious for – not changing, but I think it is more of a human trait which applies to all races, creeds, colours, or genders.  People just don’t want to change and resist change perhaps above all else – except perhaps survival – but then again I think even survival in many cases.  The members of the Possum Lodge didn’t say the pledge with much conviction as I recall. 

I have titled this edition of News and Views, “What, Me Change?”  as a riff on the cover character from Mad Magazine, Alfred E Neuman, whose tagline was “What, me worry?”   As I recall, reading Mad Magazine all those years ago, that good old Alfred probably had a lot to worry about.  In the same way, people could benefit from changing things about how they approach life and the world. 

The topic of change came to mind when I read a short poem by W. H. Auden this week:

W. H. Auden (1907–1973)

“We would rather be ruined than changed,

We would rather die in our dread

Than climb the cross of the moment

And let our illusions die.” [1]

Richard Rohr addressed this resistance to change in a recent Daily Meditation which quoted the Auden poem:

What the ego hates more than anything else is to change—even when the present situation is not working or is horrible. Instead, we do more and more of what does not work, as many others have rightly said about addicts. The reason we do anything one more time is because the last time did not really satisfy us deeply. 

I have called the ego, God’s greatest gift to humankind and its greatest curse.  We can’t live without our egos and we can’t live with them – at least we can’t live fully as God intended unless the ego finds its correct role which is to serve God rather than it wants which is for God or the gods to serve it. 

As Auden puts it so succinctly, we need to climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.  In Christian terms we need to pick up our cross and follow Jesus Christ.  We cling to those illusions which seem to form the prism through which we see and understand the world and make us who we believe we are.  Putting them down may not be easy but it will be the way to life which is full of joy and full of meaning.

May you be blessed to pick up your cross and put down your illusions on your journey.