Grand View University - Viking Yearbook (Des Moines, IA)

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Pastor Johannes Knudsen, Ph. D., S.T.M., M.A President of Grand View College -1o- e

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Change Change is inevitable! The old Romans had a proverb for this when they said: Tempus fugit, which means time runs away. Modern America puts it differently. It says Time Marches On. Can there be a different approach and evaluation in the two sayings? There may be a difference of age involved. Rome was oldg its time was running out. America is young and just beginning to move, or so it thinks. When you are young and hopeful, time marches on. When you are baldish and nearing fifty, time runs away. Change comes with time, but change has many different paces. The airplane circles the world in non-stop flight and Mark Twain's famous ride down a glacier would have carried him few feet in a year. Is life like the rocket or like the glacier? Attitudes differ. The youngster says: I'll try anything once, but the old fossil protests: l'm opposedto any change, even for the better. A conservative has been defined as a person who will never do anything for the first time, and a radical as one who will never do any- thing except for the first time. Historians tell us that the world has changed more during the last few decades than during any comparable period in history. One may well believe it, and one may shudder at the thought. Even I have had the privilege of living in both the horse-and-buggy days and the atomic age. I am happy that this is the case, but I am not sure that I am happy at the accelerated rate of change. Too many valuable things disappear too fast. When I was a small boy in Tyler-the phrase has a magic though nostalgic ring-we lived in the horse-and-buggy days. Automobiles were a sensational novelty, as were electric lights and moving pictures. On Sunday mornings there was no line of cars before the church. Everyone came by means of some horse-drawn vehicle. There were surreys, some with fringes and some without, top-buggys, spring wagons and lumber wagons, and in the winter there were sleighs and bobsleds. The ladies and children were bundled up with coats and Shawls and blankets for the several-mile excursion, and the men proudly handled the lines of a frisky team. Unloading the passengers at the church, the driver moved on to the barns where the team was stabled during the services. In retrospect there was a glamour about those days which even the thrill of the oncoming automobile cannot erase. The memory is nostalgic, which means that it brings the sweet sentimental pain of a return which cannot be made in reality. But no one wants to return, even though he might. We do no want to sacrifice the comfort and efficiency of the modern ways for the glamour of a day which meant far more work and greater discomfort. Why then bother even discussing the matter. Let it be the theme of a day-dream in an idle moment, and let us live in the world that is ours today. The point is, however, that we have lost more than the surrey with the fringe-on-the-top. If it were only that, we could go down to see Oklahoma on its perennial return and be satisfied. The important fact is not that everyone came to church in a horse-drawn vehicle. The fact is that everyone came, period. The old folks could be seen in their customary place in the pews every Sunday, and the young folks filled the spacious gallery every Sunday. Everyone went to church every Sunday. This is not so any more. For a while the automobile replaced the buggy at the church door, but now it has become just as significant a factor in carrying people away from the church. It is not my intention to discuss the significance of going to church -11-