Change takes lots of motivation.

The political season highlights the need for social change. Politicians have to motivate voters to step outside their customary, everyday routines and get out and vote. To do that, they have to paint a picture of society in contrasting colors, hoping to convince the public of the great need for major change.

And at voting time, citizens have to act and make a choice.

Faith communities face similar circumstances. The letters of St. Paul to one church or another demonstrate the many challenges everyone, even committed Christians, face in being responsive to, and responsible for, one another.

Paul, also, sometimes uses stark contrasts to elicit the concern for one another that being members of the Body of Christ demands of us.

And that’s because change require lots of motivation. Inertia, it seems, rules the day, working against personal, social, and spiritual change.

Yet the Incarnation – God entering into our lives and our world – is basically about change, about choosing.

Those who are “born again” give testimony of major change in their lives. But, in a sense, we are all “born again” with the dawning of every day and challenged to begin anew, to change in some way and take some action to make today different from yesterday in how we relate to our inner selves, to others, and to God.

Hopefully, we don’t have to experience a summer of discontent and turmoil to take the first step in changing our lives and those of others around us.