Remember Issac Newton and his apple from high school science class? In addition to his insights about gravity, Newton developed 3 laws of motion. His first law states:  an object at rest will remain at rest unless an external force acts upon it.That’s right, an object at rest will not move unless someone exerts force.  Newton’s first law is also called the Law of Inertia. His findings led to many other scientific discoveries about our universe, including Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Newton focused on objects in our physical world. However, I think his Law of Inertia is a great metaphor for change and movement in human psyches. I have observed in myself and others periods of “inertia”. In the psychological sense, this would include being stuck in a rut, not progressing on a project, walking through life in a daze, or long periods of laziness. I would also “apply” the Law of Inertia to people who resist greater change in the world and/or those who refuse to accept modern technologies. People who refuse to change their ways and/or grow up. Women who stay in abusive relationships. Unhealthy people who won’t change lifestyle habits. No movement. No change. Inertia. I also believe that many humans avoid change to such a degree that they set in motion negative change, rather than embracing positive change.

You can push a rock downhill to end its state of inertia. In humans, wake up calls can act as the “force” to get us moving from a state of mental inertia—a cancer scare, a revealing blood test, loss of a friend. Seeing injustice heaped on others can also cause us to rise up from the lounge chair and do something. What about the sad, emaciated faces of kids suffering from malnutrition?

People who act on their wake-up calls, and/or remind us that we can each make a difference are changemakers.  They often become the force we need to move beyond our own inertia. I am thinking about Doctors Without Borders, Nature Conservancy, Martin Luther King. What about youth who go on mission trips and families who participate in a community project? They are changemakers too.   Here are some links about human changemakers:

• Under 30 Changemakers http://www.under30changemakers.com/
• Fifty Non-profits making a world of difference http://matadornetwork.com/change/50-nonprofits-making-a-world-of-difference/
• Vision, Eyesite organization: http://causeartist.com/organizations-impacting-the-world-vision/

We find the most influential changemakers in our religious traditions. Jesus did not condemn everyday people. He motivated them to make a change. The Israelites were living under foreign rule and paid heavy taxes. The institutional religious leaders were working with the oppressive Roman rulers. Everyone in power was using them for their own benefit, and the people lived in horrid oppression and misery, afraid to stand-up. Of course, those in power “shot the messenger”  of peaceful change, but before he died, Jesus started a movement to teach people how to be free regardless of their circumstances.

Jesus provided more than a call to change. He brought the people there an ethics of change: nonviolence, love your neighbor, do unto others. Unfortunately, that is still preached but no longer followed in mainstream society. I saw this is my own time as a minister, and I see it around me every day. With great reluctance, I point to the current election. Love your neighbor? Do unto others? A spirit of peacefulness? What about the glaring double-standard in how  Ammon Bundy and his co-conspirators were treated by law enforcement and the legal system versus the Native American protestors in ND? Where did all the ethics go?

Back to Issac Newton and his law of inertia. I see wake-up calls all around us. We are in a time of great change, politically, economically, socially. I see frustrated people who have lived with blinders on suddenly taking a stand but without much forethought and definitely without an ethics of change. History shows repeatedly: that leads to chaos. Reckless action leads to negative, polarizing change. It is time to seek healthy, non-destructive change using the ethics of change brought to us by the world’s great spiritual leaders. How about these?

And finally, on this beautiful Sunday morning:

Copyright, Jane Willis, 2016

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