On Change.

Change for the better, change for the worse, change for the sake of change. All worldly enterprises are immersed in suffering, say the Buddhists: change, good, bad or indifferent, is suffering. The cause of suffering is also desire, aka greed, even desire for suffering to end.

            How many great historical changes have I seen? Looking back on my years as a history text I see major disruptions, wars, famines, genocides, massive alterations in political maps. Going over the map of Europe from the Roman Empire to the present is like viewing a flickering lantern show, borders floating forward and back across a screen. Walls, such as Hadrian’s Wall, have been built. Walls, like the Berlin Wall, have been destroyed.

            In Rome lies Monte Testaccio, a huge hill of broken pottery, a record of ancient taxes in kind. Money and markets change greatly. Inspired adventures, collapsed economies, magnificent empires, crumbled civilisations: all change. Seeking The Golden Age anywhere in the past ignores the truth of change. 

            Heaven and earth indeed will change, says the Psalmist. They wear out, they are changed like clothing: ‘Thou shalt change them like vesture, and they shall be changed.’ God alone is unchanging. Always only God.