Whenever there is a crisis in human affairs, we consider change as an answer to the crisis.

Revolutionaries are in the public mind, those who spouse change, conservatives those who oppose it. In itself, this practice of naming a stand often betrays an easy and often lazy thinking habit. What is change? Is it a worthwhile and useful improvement? How willing are we to study, as fairly as our feelings will allow, the background, the start, the original intent of that we intend to change? Are we able to separate entities and things from the people who manage or use them? Are we about to make a change without questioning the framework that caused the problem in the first place? Are we trying to cure the disease by alleviating the symptoms? Going after the true cause of a problem can be an excruciating psychological and/or spiritual process. It often involves gaining an insight into our true motives. Often, the choice of action seems simple. For example, the overthrow of an unfair, totalitarian regime seems a foregone conclusion. However, changes come in many shades. An old tale recounts of a cuckolded man telling his best friend I found out that my wife uses the parlor sofa to cheat on me His shocked friend asked him What are you going to do? I already did it the man replied with a sad and grave voice His worried friend questioned him What have you done? The man hung his head and replied I sold the sofa. He certainly made a change. Nevertheless, a turn for the better should aim to change the root of what is wrong. The actions, the means, and the timing should embody the good intended. Likewise, it brings to mind what Martin Luther King said in his sermon on Christmas Eve in 1967, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church ends and means must cohere. Further, he said; ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you cant reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree. Martin Luther King did not make up these thoughts. He strikingly and sensibly re-phrased what others had said before him. Mohandas Gandhi, like Kant, paid specific attention to motives and intentions; however, he went beyond by drawing attention to morality as essential to human behavior. Are these thoughts an appeal to remain unmoved, inert, and perhaps seemingly blas to injustice? Alternatively, do they entreat us to use just and virtuous means to achieve fair and good ends? Honesty of motives to strive for change is a pre-requisite. What do we mean when we say a good community, a good government? Is the main objective of a good government the ongoing, dynamic welfare and happiness of all its citizens? On the other hand, is it the rise of an elite, group or person its only objective? Are we truly and honestly ready to give up our welfare for others in a quest to change the roots of present evil? The roots are not people themselves; rather, the roots are time-hardened habits, views, and prejudices. This is where faith plays a crucial role. It is easy to connive to end what we perceive as an evil. It is much harder to study what brought that evil into being. Perhaps the evil we seek to do away with is a creature of our prior views and beliefs. We must be careful not to re-create, out of lazy thinking and expediency, the same evil we claim to oppose. Faith in means that are collective, just and ethic will inspire truly altruistic action. Altruism often requires heroism, but, in time, it is what will achieve good and just ends. Of course, there are people with better credentials who have delved and written with greater coherence and impact about these matters; but I remember what my teacher, Dr. Eugene Hollahan, said when I despaired to write something original on the topic of the presence of Christian thought in the Book of Job. It is going to be your contribution; forget what others have said or done. SOME OURCES

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