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       %RESIST CHANGE CONSERVE GOODNESS OPPOSE EVIL 960721

     People often  seek to conserve goodness by trying  to
keep the old which they regard as the essence of goodness.
They  thus  often fall into the trap of trying  to  resist
change.    Instead of actually and truly resisting  change
they   are   often  dishonest  about  the  changes   which
inevitably take place---and which often take place because
of their own dishonesty.

     It is not change which we need to resist, for  change
is the essence of all processes.   The essence of goodness
is  not  in what has been,  in the old.   Being  dishonest
leads  inevitably  to   changes due to  human alienations,
estrangements and excommunications.

     We cannot enjoy personal and communal integrity if we
are  compulsively fixated upon maintaining the  status-quo
which we regard as "good".  Traditions have their place in
life---but  they are not worthy of worship.   The ways  of
our  ancestors  may  have  been right for  them  in  their
environment;  but they are not necessarily right for us in
our  environment which is changed from the environment  of
our  ancestors.     We  can enjoy  personal  and  communal
integrity if  we  honestly  seek  to  promote  integrative
changes in ourselves and in our communities.

     If we are  resisting  integrative  changes  we may be
trying  to answer misleading and disintegrative questions.
So   long  as  we  accept  misleading  and  disintegrative
questions as worthy of being answered on their own  terms;
so long we will be torn  apart  in conflict  over  how  to
answer  such  misleading questions---when we should  focus
our attention cooperatively  upon  other  more integrative
questions instead.

     Sometime it is not easy to avoid answering misleading
and  disintegrative questions on their terms.   There  are
coercive  people  who  often  seek  to  embarrass  us   by
insisting   on   us   answering   their   misleading   and
disintegrative  questions on their terms;  terms which are
often  dichotomous  and which cannot be answered truly  in
either  of  the  "permitted"  ways.  The challenge  is  to
transcend  the  questions as they are formulated,  and  to
help others transcend the  coercive  questions as they are
formulated by manipulative people.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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