Change

Change is the subject on my mind lately for multiple reasons. We'll start slow.

Obviously I am going through a relocation with my family. This change is big, even though we are moving just down the road. Our change consists of moving out of an isolated, 70,000 peopled town that moves slowly, to a branch of Denver - Colorado Springs, a much faster metropolis of a half million people. Add to this change a reset button was hit on my work-based knowledge. Air Force knowledge is the same across the world (WAPS-testing-wise), but I am starting over in what I do on a day-to-day basis. Change also comes in the form of finances and ownership of a home. New ground for us. It would have been a bit less of a shock doing it in South Dakota, but we are jumping in with both feet into the deep end. Change for my family here can be good or bad. Right now the future looks good.

Change is also a highlighted subject for me in the area of my worldviews. Although much slower, this change is ongoing but significant in my mind as it involves things I hold dear and things I enjoy studying. My evolution in how I see things also looks good from where I am. This change in worldviews entails a change in my theology and a change in my political views, those two being the most significant, although a change in my philosophical views comes in a close third.

Change has also been on my mind regarding my church. Not my local church but to most readers, OUR church. Here is a little about where I am going with this:

"... If someone can find something in the Book of Mormon, anything that they love or respond to or find dear, I applaud that and say more power to you. That's what I find, too. And that should not in any way discount somebody's liking a passage here or a passage there or the whole idea of the book, but not agreeing to its origin, its divinity. ...

I think you'd be as aware as I am that that we have many people who are members of the church who do not have some burning conviction as to its origins, who have some other feeling about it that is not as committed to foundational statements and the premises of Mormonism. But we're not going to invite somebody out of the church over that any more than we would anything else about degrees of belief or steps of hope or steps of conviction. ... We would say: "This is the way I see it, and this is the faith I have; this is the foundation on which I'm going forward. If I can help you work toward that I'd be glad to, but I don't love you less; I don't distance you more; I don't say you're unacceptable to me as a person or even as a Latter-day Saint if you can't make that step or move to the beat of that drum." ... We really don't want to sound smug. We don't want to seem uncompromising and insensitive.

There are plenty of people who question the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and they are firmly in this church -- firmly, in their mind, in this church -- and the church isn't going to take action against that. [The church] probably will be genuinely disappointed, but there isn't going to be action against that, not until it starts to be advocacy: "Not only do I disbelieve in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, I want you to disbelieve." At that point, we're going to have a conversation. A little of that is more tolerated than I think a lot of people think it should be. But I think we want to be tolerant any way we can. ... "Patient" maybe is a better word than "tolerant." We want to be patient and charitable to the extent that we can, but there is a degree beyond which we can't go. ..."
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, LDS Apostle, PBS Interview, March, 2006

I see the church moving forward and this quote is a good representation of how I see it moving forward. Officially and unofficially, you can see instances in Orthodox Mormonism reaching out and acknowledging liberal, progressive and free-thinking Mormonism. Whereas a decade ago, these unorthodox Mormons were lost sheep, fallen, blasphemous, etc. etc. Who knows what the future holds for each of us or for this fascinating church, but I for one hope for progressive change, however subtle it may be.

The last change on my mind follows in the wake of the previous subject. As of late, I have considered the nature of God. As of late I have held in my mind that man's picture of God hasn't seemed to advance like our understanding of everything else that denotes there is a God, so to speak. In 100 years no one could have imagined our leaps and bounds in understanding: the universe, our environment, technology, and all sciences. Yet I bet, his writings notwithstanding, that Moses had a better understanding of God than we will in mortality. Yes, Moses had some one on one moments with Father, but my point is that progress hasn't seem too substantial in this core of most theologies. Change is one thing that has seemingly been stripped from our Father. Soon after Christianity was born, some pompous know-it-alls went about changing doctrine they thought they saw in the Bible. A stagnant God standing outside of time and space is what they came up with. Where do you get the idea that a perfect God has to have reached the top of every experiential peak? Why can God not cry over his children? Why does God have to know our future, yet keep intact our free-will in some nonsensical paradox?

God's space-time world is linear, I say, for it makes Him a Father again, whereas if he stood outside of time and space (can't even imagine that), then he truly becomes an enigma. Approachable only in death, for He knows and has already answered my prayers in life and I don't want that God. Change therefore becomes an integral part of my God. God therefore changes daily with me. As I grow, He grows. He grew a lot through some experiences His children had.

Change. Are we changing for better? Does it matter how slowly if we are? Does it matter whether other people think it is for the better? I am just glad I have the ability and the free will to be able to change tomorrow. And from there, change some more.