Walk while you have the light,
before darkness overtakes you.

John 12:35b

This was it. This is the last year we’re doing daylight savings! No more spring forward, no more fall back. Just the natural progression of the seasonal sun across the sky., the way God intended it.

Wait, I think I was dreaming. Sorry, I just dozed off, and I bet I’m not the only one. This whole loss of an hour of sleep thing is getting OLD!

Wouldn’t it be nice, though, to eliminate this tradition that literally no one has a decent reason for keeping? Oh, maybe there’s some farmer out there that thinks it helps with their crops or cattle or something, but that old rationale just doesn’t seem to still carry much weight anymore.

So why don’t we cancel it? Why don’t we do away with this silly tradition that forces me to remember how to set the clock in my car twice a year?

Because old traditions die hard. Even silly ones. The way we’ve done things for years ends up being easier to just keep doing, even when we’ve lost any good reason not to change.

My mom used to tell me about how big a deal it was to put a hat on the kitchen table. She asked why, and was finally told it was because, generations ago, people had lice! That’s just not a thing anymore, but the tradition stuck. Nowadays I’ll put my hat any old place I want and not think twice, but for my mom’s generation it took some reeducation and effort to change.

What traditions in your family need to go bye bye? How about in your home town? If you go looking you’ll find all kinds of examples of crazy laws that are still on the books, like it’s illegal to drink Dr. Pepper in Lubbock. (I just made that one up—-EVERYBODY drinks Dr. Pepper in Texas.)

Anybody who’s been part of a church knows how frustratingly slow change can come. Theologies can be stuck in some misguided past, slow to evolve. Practices, even painful, hurtful ones, continue because dismantling them seems too hard. A church can get in a rut and just stay there, even when their service to the Kingdom begins to suffer.

If you’re fed up with some outdated traditions in your life, get ready for a challenge. It takes energy and resolve and a whole lot of patience to change them, and you might not be able to do it single handedly.

God bless the Change Agents in our midst. Without those who’ve been willing to make the effort, we’d still be living…

in the Dark Ages.

Have a great week,

Mitch