THE POWER OF CHOICE Every time I go to a grocery store I am fascinated with the amount, variety, and volume of the food available to the American shopper. And did you ever notice that just when you learned where everything in the store is, the management decides to change the layout, expand the options, and for the next twenty trips into this new maze, you feel lost. Sometimes I think it is some vast psychological experiment to test my ability to adapt. Now I realize there is nothing constant but change, and sometimes the changes are for the best. County Market recently redesigned its floor layout, and quite frankly I preferred the previous one. A year ago, K-Mart's renovations caused my to go into future shock for a period of time. Now that I am used to it, I'm okay again. But for awhile, the newness of it all was unsettling. Everywhere we go today, we are faced with myriad choices. Take soap for an example. Once there were only two bars of soap: Ivory Snow for women and Lava for men. Now there are bars for every person it seems: Irish Spring; Coast; Safeguard, etc. Tomorrow in your daily travels try and find one person wearing a pair of shoes just like yours. In the past year I haven't found one person wearing a pair like mine. Yet the shoes I wear are the most comfortable ones I've ever worn. I'd recommend Rocky World Walkers to anyone. But you all have your favorites, too, and probably would recommend yours to me. The choices are unlimited. Nike, Reebok, L.A. Gear, Converse are just a few. Yes, Florscheims are still being made and a pair I bought in 1970 are still in my closet. I prefer the world walkers. A sign of the times perhaps, but I can wear them with a suit or take off cross-country wearing them. What if we only had one choice, one color pattern, one uniform to wear? Take China for instance. What if we were all required to dress like Chairman Mao? Dark, drab colors and one plain suit style for one and all. No, you and I are blessed with the choices of color and style. This is the liberty of our lives. Take our homes too. Only if you live in a modern track home would you have a dwelling almost like someone else. I imagine that in Forest County there are no two homes, externally that is, exactly the same. You and I can choose to live in as unique a dwelling as we can afford. The world changes because it must. Evolution permits no person, place, or thing to remain the same. Even rocks, which appear to be impervious to wind and water slowly erode. Perhaps the greatest choice you and I ever make is in what we believe. As Christians, we are encouraged not to build up treasures on earth, but most of our lives are spent in such individual pursuits. Do I believe in original sin or in original blessing. In the 4th century, St. Augustine interpreted the Bible and promoted the concept of "original sin." Since then, men, women, and children all over the world have spent their lives attempting to redeem themselves for something they had never done. In Original Blessing, Matthew Fox, a Dominican priest, challenged the entire foundation of the Christian church to reframe its belief system. He contended that Jesus, already redeemed us and therefore, we could more effectively live our lives if we considered that we already received this "original blessing." He challenged all Christians to find where in the Bible there is any mention of original sin. He believed the word of God was founded upon original blessing, the gift of creation, or man and woman formed in the image and likeness of Him. Again it is a choice that you and I can make. This is our freedom, our liberty in life. Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock (1970), described this rate of change which is becoming increasingly exponential as a new phenomenon facing modern humans, listed numerous examples of its effects, and explained how since 1945, change has taken a sharp turn upward. For example, purchasing an automobile was once a simple matter. You went to a Ford dealer and bought a Ford, or went to the Chevrolet dealer and bought a Chevy. But now, try and just go to a dealer and buy a Ford or Chevy. I am fascinated by the names the manufacturers give their products. Take the Ford Tempo, DL, or the Chevrolet Impala Coupe LX, or the Oldsmobile Diamonte, DS. What do all these names mean? The manufacturers name them with enough letters to pique your curiosity, and want you to come in and find out what these mean. While you're learning the meaning of the letters, the salesperson is sizing you up and deciding how to "make the deal." That's business. But the fact remains, exponential choice is part of our world whether we like it or not. Another choice facing you is what credit card to use for whatever you want to purchase. There are the main cards: MasterCard, VISA, American Express, and the Discovery card. But within each of these cards, there are a host of subcategories. How about a PennBank MasterCard, or a Marine Bank Master Card, or a Mellon Bank Master Card, or a Ford Motor Company Master Card? What's the difference between any of them? Not much. They all permit you to spend money you don't have. The worst part is that just cutting the cards up after you have them all is not good enough. I once used a pair of pinking shears to assassinate all of mine. A year later, I applied for a new card and was denied it. The argument the new credit card company used was that I already had 15 cards. My credit was overextended. I told the company I had cut all the cards up a year ago and did not owe any money on any of them. I was told that it didn't matter that they were cut up. Just having them in my name meant I still had the potential to use all of them and run up charges in excess of $18,900. I was shocked. I didn't realize I had all that potential. I didn't get the card, and to this day, still don't have one. But did you know that having the card was only necessary if you were in a store and needed to charge something directly. Using mail order catalogs, all you need is the credit card number. That's all. Just a 16-digit number and you can really "master the moment." They don't remind you that you have to pay the bill. And just imagine if the numbers somehow get into the wrong person's memory bank! Again, the changes overwhelm me. Whether its food, automobiles, or credit cards, or our fundamental spiritual beliefs, you and I are a part of the modern, Third Wave Civilization. In The Third Wave (1980), Toffler described the onset of the information age. We are living in the last decade of the Second Wave (Industrial Civilization) and the first decade of the Third Wave (Information Age). A lot of the changes we are experiencing are a result of the rapidly growing information base which makes what we learned five years ago already obsolete. Toffler predicted that a child born in 1990 who lives to be 50 years old will find that in the year 2040, 97% of what she knows will have been discovered in her lifetime. I remember when I first read this a decade ago. It did not mean much to me. In 1983, the personal computer was just an expensive toy for the rich. Today, with prices bottoming out on many machines, the personal home computer is becoming as common as the television set in many homes. It took from 1954 until 1971 before 97% of the homes in America had television sets. The prediction is that before 2010 this figure will be realized effectively halving the time it took for the television revolution. So what does this all mean? Accepting that change is inevitable helps to minimize some of the anxiety that you and I are facing. But that is not enough. In order to avoid mental obsolescence, you and I will need to read, to learn how to learn, to think, to create, and ultimately prepare for the Third Wave civilization. Toffler described the cataclysm taking place in society today as the "clashing of forces of the Second Wave attempting to maintain the dying order, and the Third Wave forces moving rapidly forward toward the new order." Where do you stand? There are moments when I resist, resent, avoid, fight change. And then, when I understand what is taking place, see the advantages of the new order before me, I am less anxious and more prepared to move forward into the new information age. I'd never want to go back to a typewriter after using a word processor. So I need to study a little bit more when I prepare to get another car. I'll have to learn the new layouts in County Market and K- Mart and more than anything else, I like you, will need to face this the rest of my life. But consider this for a moment. What would it be like if we did not have these choices? Imagine living in Russia today and going to a grocery store and the only choice was whether or not you chose to stand in line and wait for the chance to get inside the store and buy either milk or bread, and nothing else. There are many places in the world today where this scene is being lived out by people much less fortunate than you and me. Yes, change can lead to anxiety, fear, and a quaking unto death. We, you and I, can't go back in time. We can't reverse the forward motion of history, nor can I imagine going back to anything in the past. Everything in life is divinely balanced. True, the 1950's were superficially a peaceful time. But many people died of simple illnesses like TB and heart attacks during the 50's. Today, I know people who have had five heart attacks and are still living meaningful, productive lives. In 1900, the average life span for a man was only 58 years. Today, that life span has increased to 73 years. A score of years is a long time. In less than a century, modern medicine has given individuals, second, third, fourth, and fifth chances to live. I agree some things taking place today are unpleasant. The violence in the streets is not something we Americans can be proud of, but it too is part of the civil war between Second and Third Wave proponents. It will pass as the Third Wave dominates and the Second Wave passes away in the next decade. If you're really curious about this Third Wave and what it can and will mean to you, walk on down to the library and check out, Future Shock, by Alvin Toffler. While you're at it, you might want to read the second book in the series, The Third Wave. Both texts make a lot of sense. Reading, and understanding what is coming can make facing the changes less threatening to you. This conflict between waves will end, and once the information age is accepted a new balance will emerge and many of the problems we are facing today will become part of the history books our grandchildren will be reading in 2010 A.D. P.S. The Editors of Readers Digest in the April, 1993 volume write that if there are some things you are upset about and want your voice as well as your vote to be counted, you can write a letter to President Clinton. Better yet, if you have access to a FAX machine, you can send him a message over the phone line. President Clinton's address is: President Clinton The White House Washington, D.C. 20500 FAX: 202-456-2461 Isn't modern communication wonderful!