Change is Difficult

About 8 years ago, when I was going through a difficult patch in my life, a friend gave me a wonderful little book by Robert Johnson, entitled "Who Moved My Cheese?" It is a description of how we adjust to change. It is a story of 4 little mice named, Hem and Haw, Sniff and Scurry. They each are used to coming to the same place every day to get their cheese, and one day they get there and there is no cheese. Sniff and Scurry go "sniffing" and "scurrying" to find new cheese, and they find cheese, and actually find that the cheese is better than they have ever found before. Hem and Haw keep going back to the same place and get angrier and angrier, but they don't do anything to try to move beyond their anger and grief. It was a very important book for me, on a emotional and spiritual level.

I want to hand this book to the 43% of the country who are not real happy about the election of Barack Obama to the office of president. And while I understand that they need a time to grieve, and part of that grief process is anger, eventually they will have to move on. The unknowns of the future are a source of great fear, but the fearful emotions are often much bigger than the reality itself.

But see, the secret of the story "Who Moved My Cheese?" is that Sniff and Scurry found a better quality of cheese than they had been used to. But the other important part of it is Sniff and Scurry went back to try and bring Hem and Haw along. They went back to the original place, and left encouraging messages, called "the Handwriting on the Wall," to help Hem and Haw get out of their places of anger and being stuck in the anger, to go out and seek the better cheese for them. Sniff and Scurry also let Hem and Haw know that if they kept going back to the same empty places that don't work, they will die.

The places I believe right now are so Hem and Haw"ish" are:

* those who are already making moves to impeach Obama before he has ever even been sworn in.

* Those who are trying to say that the Obama campaign "stole" the election.

* Those who are reacting to the choices of the cabinet negatively and assuming that they reflect a contradiction to the campaign promises.


To all of those, I would say, let's relax. The country and the world have spoken, with a collective sigh of relief for President Elect Obama's election. The cheese is no longer in the McCain Palin Maze. Let's allow President Elect Obama to lead. and who knows, we might find that the cheese is better quality, better tasting, and better for all of us in general.

And most of all, let us all be reminded that God is still in the heavens and in control.

Amen? Amen!