Is progress always progress?
image by arthur.io
Historians delight in their mantra, “The only absolute is change.” Ya gotta admit, change has become omnipresent, and fast. Ever think about analyzing if progress is progress? Let’s do that.
Once an unbroken line
straight as a rule
that mesa top stretching across
the Nevada sky
rough, craggy fissures
jutted with rocks
streamed down
from the crown above
only a mountain goat
could navigate those jagged sides
to the virginal top
Then the bulldozer’s plunging organ
ripped out its insides
leaving two gaping holes
crudely patched with asphalt
Like gunfighters of old
the highway department
left two notches as its permanent mark
a minute and 13 seconds were saved
the pleasure seekers hurrying from St. George to Las Vegas
enough time
to see one more bared chest
to play seven dimes in the slots
to roll the dice and crap out
Progress
America’s new god
My first long bike tour in 1970 took me from SoCal to Canada and back, and transformed my trajectory. This exposure to so much nature away from big cities changed how I thought. On the last leg from Vegas on I-15, I noticed a flat-topped mesa directly ahead, with two notches cut for the interstate. One for northbound, one for south. This poem came from pondering: is progress always progress? Do we make it better or worse?
Frankly, not many of us can slow the pace of change. Not even sure we should. But maybe we need to examine the issue and intentionally determine our level of interaction with it. This has become my life verse—it touches our lives in every area, “Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22).
That “everything” includes all. Our pastor’s teaching. Social media. Tech progress. Our level of interaction with change. In our testing, let’s use Jesus’ command to love God and all people as the standard. Will the changes impact how we love and interact with others and with God?
Perhaps, when testing the newest change, we can be intentional rather than automatically accepting or automatically resisting the change. Check out the cost/benefits ratio. What might be some long-term consequences?
Several years back our kids picked up Alexa, the voice connection to the internet. David asked Alexa to play an Elvis song for Sheila, and it impressed her. But a year later, they had a conversation in the living room, 3 rooms and 2 walls away from Alexa, and while they never said Alexa, she spoke, “Would you like me to order that for you?” I was teaching 1984 about Big Brother’s continual surveillance, and honestly, it spooked me.
So, should you dump Alexa? I don’t care, that’s your decision. Merely, let’s think about our interaction with change. Simply, will it help or hurt us in our love of people and God?
Kick Starting the Application
Do you tend to be an early adopter of change, or a late one? Do you have a process of how you interact with change? Should you?