Who is right?

Tonight I watched a Council meeting on YouTube (some may call me sad..). Councillors at Castle Point in Essex voted to withdraw their Local Plan and start again from scratch. The big issue was new houses. In a sense what’s happened is not unusual as this will be the 5th attempt to produce a plan in the last 20 years. What was unusual was that this Plan had gone through all the consultation processes and statutory hoops and been found sound by an independent inspector. This is the first time I’m aware of nationally that a Plan has been withdrawn at such a late stage.

Change. We either relish it or hate it. It stirs up such passions. People may accept the reasons for change, but protest its not for them or it is fine somewhere else but not here. The immediate threat of change may be ameliorated but the underlying issue still remains. It can be like that in our own lifes-as someone said, we can often only change something in ourselves when we can no longer tolerate things as they are.

There are times when it right to stand up against something that is new but wrong. It can’t be change for change sake. But even then we must be very careful to understand our reasons for resistance.

Yet change is inevitable and often vital, even if hard. A caterpillar will only turn into a butterfly 🦋 if it goes through the chrysalis stage and the hard battle of getting out of the pupae. If we had not facilitated change in building techniques we would be still constructing beautiful but cold and dark buildings like Speke Hall for the very wealthy. And wearing lovely but impractical clothes.

Many forms of religious persecution often come from resistance to change too. In many middle eastern societies for an individual to change their faith is seen as an insult to the family. In rural India it is an insult to the majority faith. Change cannot be tolerated and in many places must be resisted, sometimes violently. Change has costs, but for those whose lifes are changed, they consider the cost of following Jesus worth it.

Change. To change or not change: each have consequences. How do you and I deal with it?