Metanoia – change in one’s way of life resulting from spiritual conversion.
The word ‘metanoia’ is Greek with ‘meta’ meaning after or beyond and ‘nous’ meaning mind. It’s commonly understood as “a transformative change of heart” and used consistently to express a fundamental change in thinking that leads to a fundamental change in behavior.
Transformation and change are all around us today. However, what is driving the conversion? What is the before and after? There is the famous Mahatma Gandhi’s quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” But who is defining this change? Right now, we have some scary and divergent thoughts on what this change needs to be. Those who stormed the Capital were attempting to be the change they sought. Many evil acts in the history of the world can be traced to this concept.
Change is an external event or situation. It can be a new business strategy, a turnover of leadership or management, a birth of a child, moving to a new city. The focus is on the outcome that will be produced. Change can happen very quickly. Transformation is the internal process that we go through as we come to terms with new situations. Transformation is not the external outcome but where we are, personally, in leaving the old situation behind. Transformation takes time.
Crisis will drive change, but it is up to us to determine the direction. Every crisis contains a rightful demand for
renewal and a step forward. Noted mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once said, “The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.” Our progress towards a new direction must be that way. No matter how positive we may feel and how important/urgent this new direction may be; change can put us in crisis. With change comes confusion, frustration, fear, possibly grief, and a host of other stress-inducing emotions. Many of us while experiencing change on this level will go through phases like denial and experience emotions like resistance.
It is not our place to figure out how to change other people and make them think and act differently. We cannot transform our neighbor from the outside. We need to fix ourselves, to look inward, and challenge our own thoughts and reactions; to identify established ideas of superiority, entitlement, or intolerance. We can’t change what we don’t notice. For us to be the best citizen and person we can be, we must constantly evaluate our opinions and motivations that guide our behavior. Let’s be humble enough to admit we are not perfect. If we commit to addressing our own ‘gaps’, then society will improve.
Charles Dickens grew up in the 1800’s in a world of poverty and injustice. He knew first-hand about being exploited and powerless. Those painful experiences became the content for his stories. Stories that awakened the consciousness of the British Empire and helped change the world. “A Christmas Carol” brings to life the infamously stingy Ebenezer Scrooge, a character whose name is synonymous with a greedy, self-serving, uncaring person. The message in Dickens story is that we have a moral responsibility to care for our fellow man and that love and benevolence can change lives.
After years as a self-described “hustler” and serving time in prison, Dante Barksdale committed to turning his life around. He made himself better. Dante became the prominent anti-gun violence activist in Baltimore, helping to keep neighborhoods safe from gun violence. One by one he saved other lives. Bit by bit, he made the community better. It didn’t happen overnight, but it also didn’t take an eternity. Although he was fatally shot at the age of 46, he lived being the change he wanted.
There is a quote from an unknown source, “People change for two reasons: either their minds have been opened or their hearts have been broken.” I believe there are two more reasons – minds can be broken and hearts can be opened. Spiritual conversion or change occurs “in” the person not “of” the person. People change in their heart and the way you reach the heart is through love. Roman Emperor Constantine’s heart was changed by witnessing Christians acts of love to care for others during the Plague of Cyprian and as a result, he stopped persecuting them.
Tension for change is an important concept when we are looking to improve. The gap between where we are, current
state, and where we want to be, future state, creates this tension. The analogy is that of a stretched elastic band between the points. We need to make the anchor point of this tension the future vision. The captured potential energy – like in a stretched rubber band – will be the energy source to move people forward. We need to approach transformation with the end in mind.
Jesus challenges us to see change and transformation as a blessing. We need to push through the desire for things to “get back to normal.” Jesus never endorsed being normal for comfort’s sake. He disrupted centuries-long norms and religious traditions during His ministry on earth. The tension we feel now is similar to what Jesus felt and He perfectly addressed this tension in His parable of the wineskins.
“No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.” (Mark 2:22, Lk 5:37-38). Similarly, Jesus warns us that, “No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.”
A crisis is a time of grace granted us to discern God’s will. At times of trial, we must have the courage to be led by the Holy Spirit and trust in God. Only by dying to certain beliefs will we be able to make room for the newness the Spirit awakens in our hearts. Transformation that springs from the old becomes fruitful. Jesus explains this conversion in a simple and clear image: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). The dying of a seed is ambivalent: it is both an end and the beginning of something new.
We are deep in the midst of change, whether we like it or not. As people of faith, we must bring God into our hearts and allow God to transform us. When we embrace the light of transformation God ignites in us, we can be the light of conversion for others. To live in a just society, we must work to bring about transformation, we must be new wineskins, we must experience metanoia.
