Tag: change

Change

In my last blog post, I told the story of Ernst Dumoulin. He murdered his wife on their wedding night, spent 16 years in prison, but, after release, became a church pastor. He had changed. His life after prison was completely different compared to his life before prison.

Change is not easy. Ask anyone who’s lost weight but put it all back on later. Or tried to cure their short temper and stay calm. Or to resist driving above the speed limit on an empty road with no-one else around. Attitudes and habits are stubbornly resistant to change, like weeds you hack down which soon return.

But change can happen, and to explain how I’ll use a story of change which includes four essential steps for turning life around. Some self-help books seem to suggest change can occur without cost or effort. It can’t, and I will not pretend that the four steps here are painless. Almost always change requires time, hard work, and sacrifice, but it is unimaginably worth it.

The story of change I’ll use is often called the Parable of the Prodigal Son.[1] It was told by Jesus and sits alongside other lost/found stories in Luke’s gospel, chapter 15. I will summarise the story, and when I quote the exact words I’ll be using the translation called the New International Version (NIV).

A father had two sons, both grown up. The younger son got weary of the quiet life on the family farm, and made an outrageous request to his father, to give him his inheritance money now. Remarkably, his father agreed, and gave his son a small fortune. Soon after, the young man walked away, and he kept going until he reached another country. Then his crazy spending started. Jesus said he ‘squandered his wealth in wild living’ (Luke 15:13). When money is thrown around, so-called friends are plentiful. From later in the story, we know many of those ‘friends’ were prostitutes.

But, of course, the boy didn’t have a bottomless pit of money. When it ran out the friends were gone. The lad was destitute and, to make matters worse, a famine ravaged the land. He was in another country, with no support, no nearby family, and now no money. The boy was famished. In desperation he begged a farmer to hire him, which he did and sent him into the fields to feed his pigs. Jewish law did not permit eating pork, so his work was demeaning and counter to his upbringing and beliefs. When he’d asked for his inheritance, he’d imagined the vast sum would provide him with a life of ease and pleasure, but that dream was now a nightmare. The boy stared at the pods he fed to the pigs, knowing they had more food than he did. No-one gave him anything, and before long he would die of hunger.

But one day, the wayward son came to his senses. He realised that back home even his father’s servants had food to spare ‘and here I am starving to death!’ (Luke 15:17). To stay was to die. To go home might mean rejection, but, if he confessed how wrong he’d been, just possibly his father would allow him to become a servant. His clothes in tatters and no sandals on his feet, he set off on the long trek home. The reception he got there was very different from what he expected.

It’s a great story, but what are its four steps to personal change?

STEP ONE  Realism    ‘I’m not an alcoholic,’ Jerry told me, ‘I just like a drink’. He liked a drink so much that consuming a few pints of beer had become a daily habit. Often it was more than a few and he’d have to be helped home. Jerry’s drink problem had wrecked the family finances, almost destroyed the last vestiges of his relationship with his wife and children, and he was about to lose his job. But he kept insisting he just liked a drink. Everyone except Jerry knew he was an out-of-control alcoholic. Many had tried to help him, but they got nowhere because Jerry denied he had a problem.

Nothing changes in our lives until we believe it must change. The word ‘must’ in that last sentence is important. Most people I’ve known who smoked wished they didn’t. Plenty of them had tried giving up but failed after a few days or weeks. But wishful thinking is far short of the total rejection of the status quo which change requires.

My favourite short book is one that has been used extensively in management and leadership training, but also has lessons for the ordinary lives of everyday people: ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’, by Dr Spencer Johnson.[2]  The main text covers just over 70 pages, but is a great example of how to use a fable to communicate deep truth.

The story is about two mice and two ‘littlepeople’ who live inside a maze. I’ll concentrate only on the littlepeople, Hem and Haw, who find a cheese-filled corridor and settle down to a pleasant life close by. Every day they feast on the cheese. But Hem and Haw become too comfortable. They get complacent and don’t realise the cheese supply is dwindling. One day there’s no cheese in their corridor, and Hem asks ‘Who moved my cheese?’. They’d assumed there would always be cheese, so had no plan what to do if there was none.

At first both are angry. Then Haw suggests they should go looking for new cheese. Hem refuses. There ought to be cheese where there was always cheese. Some time later Haw again proposes a search for new cheese. Hem is stubborn and turns down the idea. He will stay exactly where the cheese has always been abundant. By now both are looking emaciated, so one day Haw gives up waiting for Hem to agree, and off he goes to search the maze for more cheese. Along the way he finds small pieces, and generously takes some back to Hem to encourage him to search too. Hem not only refuses to move, he won’t eat the cheese Haw has brought. Well, Haw concludes, Hem can wait in that corridor if he wants, but he must keep searching. Haw explores ever deeper into the maze, round corner after corner. Finally, Haw finds a place filled with cheese, even some kinds he’s never tasted before. He could not be happier or more satisfied. He left a place with no cheese, and, because he did, he’s discovered a new place where cheese is plentiful and nourishing.

The lesson of the fable is obvious. Change must happen. We must find the ‘new’ when the ‘old’ is no longer there or good for us. Haw recognised the danger and misery of staying where he was. He did a reality check, and knew he must move. Likewise, before anything else, we must recognise when something is making our lives harmful, or wasteful, or unfulfilling, or pointless. Nothing better will happen until we accept that truth.

STEP TWO  Vision    The young man in Jesus’ parable didn’t have a vision in the mystical, dreamy sense. But he looked back, and realised what a better life his father’s servants had compared to what he was experiencing. He was starving, and wouldn’t be able to keep going much longer. The servants back home weren’t hungry; they’d more food than they needed, and they’d have food again tomorrow, the day after, and many more well into the future. That realisation generated a vision, that perhaps he could be like them, and have what they had.

It’s worth noticing his vision wasn’t a big one. All he imagined is that he might become a servant on his father’s estate. He could not have believed that he’d be restored to all he’d once had as a son, the status he had before he took his father’s money and squandered it. To be treated again as a son was impossible, and no-one tries to achieve what he knows is impossible. But he could believe he’d be taken back as a servant. It wasn’t a great vision, but it was possible so he was motivated to try.

Step two is to envision a better future, but it must be a vision you can believe in. You won’t reach further than your faith can stretch.

STEP THREE  Plan    The young man knew what he would do and say. ‘I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants’ (verses 18-19).

I like two things about his plan.

  • First, that it exists. He knew what he had to do: the journey he would take – the admission he would make – the request he would present. People have told me, ‘I want to be a better person’. That sounded good, but, as I probed, they didn’t know what being a better person involved, nor what steps they’d take to become that person. Someone else would say, ‘I want to get out of debt’. That was specific, which is helpful. But they had given no thought to the challenges they’d face in order to owe nothing, such as cutting out all nonessential purchases. Without identifying the steps their plan would involve, they’d near certainly give up when faced with sacrifices. The boy in Jesus’ story was very clear about both his goal and what he’d need to do and say to achieve it.
  • Second, that he would not hide or minimise how wrong he’d been. He would make no excuses or attempt to justify what he’d done. He would admit he’d sinned against heaven and against his father, thus making himself unworthy to be called his son. And, later in the story, that’s exactly what he confessed when he met his father (verse 21).  It’s all too easy to say, ‘I know I did wrong but…’ But I was going through a bad patch… But I didn’t realise the consequences… But I was young at the time… But my friends pressured me… Or any other of many reasons which, while possibly true, don’t justify the wrong we’ve done. The young man would not make any excuses for his betrayal of God and his family.

Step three towards change is a clear plan.

STEP FOUR  Action    I think step one in this list is very hard: getting realistic about the mistakes we’ve made or the mess our lives are in. Steps two and three, envisioning something better and planning for it, are far from easy yet not as difficult as step one. Step four is perhaps the hardest step of all to take towards change: actually beginning. It sounds effortless, and Jesus describes the young man’s start very simply, ‘So he got up and went to his father’ (verse 20).

In one sense, beginning is simple. There’s truth in the old saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Of course it does, and any walking journey is only a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. But that first step can be incredibly hard. Why? Because it’s putting our fine thoughts and words about change into action. There’s no cost or challenge about a dream. But when we do something to bring the dream into reality, there are hard and painful challenges. For the boy, it began with an arduous and very long trek home. And day after day he would be bombarded mentally with terrifying thoughts of his past failure and the likely rejection of him by his family that lay in his future. And how would he be able to stand before his father, make his confession of wrongdoing and ask for permission to become a servant. Taking action – starting out – meant all of that would happen.

In the fable of the littlepeople, it seems Hem could never make that move. If he really thought new cheese would magically reappear one day, he was an idiot. If he was simply fearful about setting out without knowing exactly where to go, I’m more sympathetic. Yet, that fear imprisons us where we are, and prevents us finding the new and better thing that lies ahead for our lives.[3] And that’s sad.

The young man in Jesus’ parable didn’t let fear stop him. He returned home, confessed to his father and asked to be treated as a servant. But before he’d got all his words out, his father was embracing and kissing him, overjoyed to have him back, then shouting for the best robe to put on him, for a feast to be prepared and a celebration organised. His father told everyone, ‘For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found’ (verse 24).

The fourth step – action – ended with an outcome far more wonderful than had ever occurred to the young man. He was accepted, reinstated, and his return celebrated. He’d risked changing, and the result was utterly amazing.

Have the courage to make changes – perhaps using the four steps listed here – and I hope you find change makes an amazing difference to your life.

[1] The word ‘prodigal’ means wasteful, lavish, extravagant, as done by a spendthrift.

[2] Who Moved my Cheese? by Spencer Johnson was first published in 1998, originally by GP Putman’s Sons. In the UK it is published by Vermilion, part of the Random House Group.

[3] I wrote once before about letting go of what we have to find something even better – see https://occasionallywise.com/2021/04/11/necessary-endings/

Can a murderer change?

October in Edinburgh can be pleasantly warm. Earlier that day, Ernst and Helga had been married, and now, on a perfect evening, they were enjoying a romantic stroll in the city’s Queen’s Park. Only one of them would return.

For many years I listened as people told me they wanted their lives to change. Some needed to quit smoking, some to save their marriage, some to stop drinking, some to lose weight, some to declutter their homes, some to have better relationships. A few did change; most did not. For many the effort and sacrifice change requires was too much.

This post is the first of two about ‘change’. In this blog I’ll tell Ernst and Helga’s story which, at the time of writing, happened almost exactly 50 years ago. It’s also a story which, in a small way, I encountered personally. In the next post I’ll set out four principles for change taken from another story, this one much older and better known.

I have several sources for my narrative of Ernst and Helga, the chief of which is a detailed account given by F.W.F. O’Brien QC in an address to The Medico-Legal Society in London in 1976.[1] O’Brien was the leading defence lawyer in the 1973 trial that followed the couple’s fateful walk in the Queen’s Park.[2]

Ernst Dumoulin was born in June 1951 in Minden, West Germany. His father was Dutch, and had been held in a concentration camp during World War II. When Ernst was one-year-old the family moved to Rotterdam, but returned to Germany when he was eight.

On leaving school Ernst went to a commercial college, and then trained as a bank assistant. He got engaged when he was 20 but that relationship soon ended. A few months later, in July 1972, he placed a newspaper advert for a wife. That was unusually bold, but a reply came from Helga Konrad who was 18-years-old. She may have been lonely. Her family was wealthy but old-fashioned, and much of her youth involved working on the family farm. Marrying Ernst had a strong appeal for Helga.

Just three weeks after the advert and first contact, Ernst arrived at the farm and asked Helga’s father for permission to marry his daughter. Unsurprisingly consent was not given. Her father made it clear Ernst would need to wait at least six months. That was too long for Ernst.

In September he bought a new red Fiat car he could not afford. His cheque bounced, but he had the car and drove to the Konrad farm. Ernst asked permission to take Helga for a short drive, and her father reluctantly agreed. As she left Helga waved back to her parents. She never returned.

Ernst and Helga’s drive was anything but short. They went to France, sold the car, and with the money bought air tickets to London. During the flight, Ernst had a chance conversation with another passenger and learned that getting married in Scotland was easier than England, so they journeyed north from London to Edinburgh.[3]

Only four or five days after leaving the farm in Germany the couple rented a room in an Edinburgh boarding house owned by Herbert Wood. They told him they planned a civil wedding at the nearby Registrar’s office as soon as they’d fulfilled the three week residency qualification in Scotland.[4] Wood had no problem with that.

The following day, Ernst used the last of the car-sale money to make a large bank deposit. With the bank account came a sizeable credit allowance, and Ernst knew exactly how he would use that credit. Two days later the couple met with the senior manager of a life insurance company and filled out forms for sizeable insurances on his life and Helga’s

The insurance company had second thoughts, and passed the business to another company. Their officials met with the couple and agreed policies to insure Helga’s life for £206,184 and Ernst’s life for £190,480. In each case the pay-out would be doubled in the event of accidental death. These were enormous sums in 1972. If Helga died accidentally then, in today’s value, the company would pay between £4.4 million and £6 million.[5] If Ernst died, the amount paid would be the equivalent today of between £4 million and £5.6 million.[6] Three quick points are relevant here: 1) The amounts covered are enormous; 2) The couple had nothing like enough money to afford the premium payments – Ernst covered a partial payment of the first premium only by drawing on his newly acquired credit allowance; 3) The fact that they were both insured, especially against accidental death, is significant.

With these insurances in place, and residency requirements fulfilled, Ernst and Helga were married in a Registrar’s office at 10.30 am on Friday 13th October.[7] Witnesses were required, and the obliging landlord Herbert Wood and his wife fulfilled that duty. After the ceremony the Dumoulins and Woods had lunch at a nearby restaurant. While they enjoyed the meal, Helga explained that Ernst planned to become a financial advisor and she would be his secretary. With her parents so opposed to their marriage, they would not return to Germany.

That afternoon the couple walked in Queen’s Park, and climbed to the top of Salisbury Crags to enjoy the fabulous view of Edinburgh, especially its castle, palace and the water of the Firth of Forth not far off. Salisbury Crags is one of the most imposing features of Edinburgh’s skyline, a semi-circle of sheer cliffs part way up a hill. It formed some 340 million years ago. In the days of the Scottish Enlightenment, philosophers, politicians and other eminent citizens walked round a track at the foot of the crags while engaged in deep thought. Braver and stronger souls climbed to the top (by an accessible path) to enjoy the higher view. (During many years of living in Edinburgh, I went to the top of Salisbury Crags several times. No-one should get near the edge, especially on windy days.)[8]

Salisbury Crags Photo by Reinhold Möller CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Apparently Helga suggested they return to the same place that evening when the view across the city to the sun setting in the west would be spectacular. It was a great plan. They set off around 8 o’clock, strolled back to the park, climbed the hill and found a quiet place high above the steep cliffs. Around 9  o’clock a merchant seaman, walking on the path below the crags, found Helga’s body. She was dead.

The seaman alerted two police officers, then almost immediately Ernst appeared. He’d run down the hill and around the base of the cliffs to where Helga lay. He was shouting for someone to get an ambulance because his wife had fallen. More people arrived on the scene, and all testified that Dumoulin was greatly distressed, describing him as ‘very agitated’, ‘in shock’, ‘hysterical’, ‘very upset’, ‘shivering uncontrollably’. One of the police officers said Dumoulin was ‘crying and shaking’. All Ernst could say was that he and Helga were enjoying a special time together when she slipped and fell. That was very possible, and no-one doubted his story. He was treated at hospital for a minor injury, after which he returned to his lodgings.

Two days later – on the Sunday – Ernst telephoned Helga’s father in Germany, and told him that he and Helga had married. When Herr Konrad asked where Helga was, Ernst replied, ‘She is in heaven’.

Later that day Ernst met with a representative of the insurance company, and found that the procedures for the policies had not been completed so no payment to him would be possible. That appears to have panicked Ernst who asked if the insurance documents could be torn up. Not only did that not happen, the company decided to inform the police.

Ernst was arrested on the Monday morning, and, with his solicitor present, he was cautioned and charged with the murder of his wife. His landlord, Herbert Wood, went into Ernst’s room to tidy up, and found letters and receipts for the insurance policy. He also alerted the police, the insurance company confirmed the details of the policy, and that Ernst had already attempted to make a claim.

In answer to the charge of murdering his wife, Ernst Dumoulin made a statement that he had pushed his wife and that caused her to fall down the cliffs, but he had not intended to murder her. Nor did he have any motive to gain money. ‘I am no murderer’ he said in German.

Scotland has a strict time limit within which trial proceedings must begin, so there was no long delay before Dumoulin was in court. He lodged a plea of not guilty and a plea of self defence.  His formal trial in the High Court in Edinburgh began on 23 January, 1973. It lasted ten days.

Among those called to give evidence were representatives of the life insurance company. They were clear that the policy applications were incomplete. None of the policies had advanced enough to be effective. But did Dumoulin know that? The company official who dealt with Ernst said it had been made very clear to Dumoulin that some matters could only be finalised after the wedding, and until that was done the policies would not be operative. Ernst’s lawyer, O’Brien, believed that negated the motive for murder. He said later, ‘No one commits murder to gain money from insurance policies which he knows have not come into effect’.

The insurance issue was, of course, only part of the evidence given to the jury. Two expert witnesses from the University of Edinburgh were called, one a specialist in forensic medicine and the other in pathology and forensic medicine. Helga’s body had many injuries, including severe fractures of the skull resulting in extensive brain damage. On these details the experts were as one. However, the two men differed in their theories of how Helga had fallen, such as whether feet first or by some form of somersault off the edge. But, critically, they agreed that the girl’s injuries did not match with a slip over the edge. Rather, as one put it, her body went into an arc either because she ran and jumped or because she was pushed violently.

As an aside, my small personal encounter with this case was that I was present at the trial on the day when these experts gave their forensic evidence. I was studying criminology at the time, and decided to attend a High Court trial, which happened to be this one.

There were discrepancies between the experts’ testimonies, but, as it turned out that did not matter. With the prosecution case finished, Ernst gave evidence on February 1.

Here are key features of his evidence:

  • He confessed to planning an insurance fraud
  • Both he and Helga would be insured
  • He would disappear and Helga would claim the money (the scheme involved leaving clothing on Cramond Island, which sits just offshore from Edinburgh)
  • The insurance on Helga’s life was simply an ‘alibi’ (by insuring both, nothing would appear sinister)
  • On the crags that evening, he and Helga had sat for half an hour close to the edge
  • She stood up to leave, and as he also rose he felt a short, firm push beneath his shoulder blades
  • That shove in the back bent him forward but he did not fall
  • Helga then rushed at him trying to push him backwards towards the edge
  • He took hold of her wrists, turned her, and pushed her away, not over the cliffs but parallel to them
  • She spun round, overbalanced and fell head first over the edge
  • He did not believe Helga’s motive was money, and could think only that she was insane at that moment

In summary, Ernst’s self-defence argument was that Helga had tried to kill him, and she fell when he protected himself.

Other witnesses were heard, and then the trial ended with the judge addressing the jury for two and a half hours on matters of law, including the presumption of innocence. They could reach any one of three verdicts: guilty; not guilty, not proven. The last of these – ‘not proven’ – is unique to Scotland. It means the case has not been made for a guilty verdict, but is not sufficiently clear for a not guilty verdict. There is no difference at all between the outcome of ‘not guilty’ and ‘not proven’ – the accused goes free and generally cannot be retried on the same charges.

By a majority of 11 to 4 the jury found Dumoulin guilty of murder.[9] He was sentenced to life imprisonment and, as was usual in such cases, no minimum term for serving the sentence was set.

Why did Ernst murder Helga? It seems he actually believed the insurances were settled, and thus he’d gain a small fortune from her death. If so then, as his lawyer O’Brien said later, Helga died and Dumoulin served a life sentence only because he misunderstood what he had been told about the policies not yet being effective, or he thought he knew better and that they were in force. Whatever the explanation, Helga’s death over Salisbury Crags was an act of evil. It cost him 16 years of imprisonment in Saughton prison.

However, my story of Ernst Dumoulin does not end at this point. As I mentioned earlier I sat through at least a day of his trial, and read later about the verdict and his life imprisonment. For several months my thoughts kept returning to him.

It is hard to explain, but for some reason I felt Dumoulin needed help to change. I had no idea whether he wanted to change, but there was one thing I could do to spur him towards a better life. I owned a copy of the New Testament in German, and about two years after Ernst was convicted I felt an urge to send him that German language New Testament. I hoped he would read it, turn to God for forgiveness, and begin a new life.

I never sent it. I had good intentions, but made the dreadful mistake of not acting promptly on my intentions. Time passed. The thought drifted away. Ernst Dumoulin never got help from me.

But it seems he got help from a far superior source, and Ernst did change. I do not know the details, other than his own statement much later that during his time in prison he ‘found God’. Most people who talk like that mean not only that they come to believe in God’s existence, but that they feel forgiven and try to live a new, better life. That is what happened with Ernst.

When he emerged from Saughton, he was different on the inside from the man who entered that prison 16 years before. Ernst Dumoulin had changed. He was still only in his late 30s, and whatever happened while in prison set him on a new path. He returned to Germany, studied theology for five years, remarried, got ordained for Christian ministry and became a pastor in a small town.

In 2006, he gave a German newspaper an account of what happened 34 years earlier on Salisbury Crags. He described it as the ‘darkest night of his life’. The couple sat on the edge of the cliffs. He held Helga in his arms, wanting her to feel loved and sure they had a wonderful future ahead. Then he’d suggested they should go home. ‘I got up,’ he said, ‘put a hand on her shoulder and acted as though I had tripped up. I didn’t want her to know I was a murderer. I pulled her and her body fell, and after that everything was quiet.’ His words were a very public confession.

John Hislop, writing in The Edinburgh Reporter, told Dumoulin’s story in October 2012, exactly 40 years after Helga’s murder. Remarkably, some weeks later Ernst Dumoulin sent him a reply from Germany. It was short, saying how surprised he was that the bad deeds of his past still drew negative attention. Then he wrote this: ‘If at all, I wish for the general welfare of people, that it might for the future be shown, that God is able to raise a small pretty flower out of a heap of dung.
With kind regards,
Ernst Dumoulin[10]

His earlier life and actions, Ernst said, was a heap of dung. But that was then, not now. He had changed, and his new life was ‘a small pretty flower’.

Some will never be able to see Ernst that way. Perhaps that’s how it has been for Helga’s parents who had the terrible pain of burying their daughter’s body 300 yards from their home. But Dumoulin’s life after prison was very different from before. He was not the man he had once been.

Change is hard but possible. In the next post I’ll describe four critical steps to bring about change in our lives.

[1] https://docksci.com/the-salisbury-crags-murder-hm-advocate-v-ernst-dumoulin_5e373e3e097c47395c8b456c.html

https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2012/10/the-infamous-salisbury-crags-murder/

https://www.scotsman.com/news/i-held-my-bride-then-i-pushed-her-over-cliff-2512321

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/history/edinburgh-salisbury-crags-murder-newlywed-25201673

[2] Queen’s Park – also known as Holyrood Park – lies right beside Holyrood Palace (the Edinburgh residence for royalty), and only a short distance from the city centre. It is no ordinary park, measuring 5 miles in diameter with mountains, marshes, moorlands and lochs. A short summary of the Park’s features is here http://www.royal-mile.com/interest/queens-park.html

[3] Parental consent has never been required for marriage in Scotland, which was the major reason young couples would elope north to Scotland for their wedding service. Until 1929, the age for marriage in Scotland was 12 for girls and 14 for boys. In 1929 the minimum age was set at 16.  https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/registration/i-want-to-get-married-in-scotland-how-do-i-go-about-it/what-was-and-is-the-minimum-age-for-marriage-in-scotland

[4] At that time couples were required to have been resident in Scotland for three weeks before their wedding. That law was abolished in 1977. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_Scotland

[5] The modern equivalents vary according to exactly which inflationary factors are taken into account.

[6] At the time of writing this blog post, £6 million = $6.7 million.

[7] I don’t believe in superstitions, but many have made a point of noting the day and date of Ernst and Helga’s wedding.

[8] Details of Salisbury Crags here  http://www.royal-mile.com/interest/salisbury_crags.html and here https://www.scottish-places.info/features/featurefirst250.html

[9] There are 15 jurors in a Scottish criminal trial. A verdict is always reached, no matter how small the majority.

[10] From https://theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2012/10/the-infamous-salisbury-crags-murder/

Yesterday is yesterday

When I started school, among many things I didn’t understand was why my desk had a hole. It was a perfectly round hole, nearly three inches across, in the top right corner.

I didn’t know what that hole was for until, three years later, the teacher came to each of our 42 desks and placed a black cup into the hole. She filled each cup with ink, and laid a pen and paper on our desks. The pen wasn’t a ball-point or fountain pen, just a shaped wooden shaft with a stylus on the end. She told us to dip the stylus in the ink, and then write on the paper. The ink quickly ran out so after each short sentence we had to dip our pens in the ink again. Writing was slow, and very, very messy.

We practised with ink and stylus for a year, and then our suffering ended. Why? Because someone realised this was a complete waste of time because ball-point pens and fountain pens were common by then. There must have been virtually no-one who dipped a stylus-only pen in and out of a reservoir of ink. Those days were gone.

Two other glaring instances of ‘persevering when the day is past’ stand out.

Typewriters    Part of my training for journalism was typing. I practised the drills and learned to touch type. Every finger except the left thumb was used, and soon I had no need to look at the keyboard. It’s a skill I still use today.

But that skill tempted me into my last, longest and least pleasurable experience with a typewriter. I made the brave but foolish decision to type my own doctoral thesis. As well as being 436 pages long, each of which had to be letter perfect, there were two special difficulties: a) much of the argument involved New Testament Greek, so I had to type each page leaving spaces to handwrite Greek into the gaps; b) I decided to create footnotes which, with a typewriter, requires calculating in advance the number of lines needed for that page’s footnotes so you could stop the main text with exactly enough space for the footnotes. My worst ever page to type had only two lines of main text and over 40 lines of a footnote. I lost count how many times I retyped that page. Almost every page was typed at least three times, but some pages many more than that.

Every page was typed on a small, portable electric typewriter. It was important that the margins didn’t change so I glued their settings in place. That typewriter lasted just long enough for me to finish. What a relief!

And then – then! – I bought my first computer (an Apple IIe). If only earlier. If I’d had a word processor before typing the thesis it would have calculated automatically the space needed for each page’s footnotes and every error would have been corrected before printing out. But I had stuck with my faithful old typewriter and made my life very difficult.

Typewriter manufacturers fought the good fight to keep their products selling after computer word processors became affordable. They gave them small memories so the typist had a chance to correct a mis-typing before the keys struck the paper. And they developed ‘golf ball’ typewriters which had no keys, just a super-fast spinning ball which struck the paper with exactly the same force every time ridding the script of light and dark letters. But no innovation could save the typewriter. The more that manufacturers churned out typewriters the more money they lost. The days of the typewriter were over.

Digital photography    As I understand it a Kodak engineer invented a digital camera in 1975. But Kodak made its money selling film, so did nothing with the idea. Other firms developed digital photography, while Kodak still tried to sell film. The giant of a former era of photography filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Film cameras still exist but only for a niche market. Film’s days are gone.

Those two examples could be multiplied. Most of us are slow to recognise when big change is happening around us, and even when we do we’re slow to let go of what’s familiar.

I’ll set down four categories where we’re ‘guilty’ of that. Some concern what’s happening in the world around us but all of them also touch on our internal reactions to change.

1. When we see change but don’t realise its significance

That would be true for Kodak and typewriter manufacturers. Some have said Kodak’s leadership thought they were in the photographic film business whereas they were really in the imaging business. That mistake imprisoned them in doing what they’d always done. Something the same happened with typewriters. Their manufacturers thought all the public wanted was better typewriters, not recognising that the disruptive technology of word processors would make their products permanently obsolete.

We think their mistakes were glaring failures to recognise new needs and opportunities. But at the time it wouldn’t have seemed like that to the CEO of Kodak or a typewriter manufacturer, someone immersed for years in one line of business and thinking all they needed to do was improve the product and raise the marketing budget. And, with no expertise in digital cameras or word processors, it’s not so surprising they shied away from what they didn’t understand or think important.

Many shun what they don’t understand or doubt. It happens with viruses and vaccines. With being told to abandon our petrol or diesel cars. With giving up the office for working from home. With radical changes to diet to counter obesity, diabetes and heart disease. What disturbs us frightens us, and we may react by denying the need to change.

2. When we don’t recognise a goal is unachievable

It happens in sport, in entertainment, in politics, with those chasing career promotion or, sadly, with those pursuing a significant personal relationship.

For every top golfer who is winning millions on a professional tour, there are tens of thousands slogging away in near poverty but still hoping that one day they’ll break through. And thousands of musicians borrowing small fortunes to produce professional standard videos believing that’ll give them a break in the pop world. And politicians aiming to run the country, but never getting further than the lowest level of local council work. Also millions working all hours at great cost to family life and personal health to climb the corporate ladder but never getting there. And the many women and some men I’ve counselled who want companionship and probably marriage, to love and be loved, but year after year it doesn’t happen.

My pain for that last group is as nothing compared to the pain they feel. And I’d never counsel anyone to close down their feelings. But, for those in other categories, there is a case for a reality check and accepting the goal that drove them on will never be achieved.

Arthur reached very high levels in one of the major oil-related companies. The work had been super-demanding, but very financially rewarding. Soon after he passed his 50th birthday, Arthur told me that if you hadn’t reached the top by age 50 in his line of business you’d never get there. He knew now his career goal was out of reach. Soon after he was offered a ‘package’ to leave. Once that’s offered, staying isn’t really an option. He accepted the deal, retired, and filled his life with voluntary work that fulfilled him, and at last he was able to give time to his wife and family.

3. When we don’t see or accept that something is over

Two blogs ago (‘Values and friendship’) I described a day out in my early 20s with then girlfriend Kate. On long drives I realised I was having to think up subjects for us to talk about. That was stressful. I wrote: ‘Warning bells rang, and the relationship with Kate gradually came to an end’. That was true. But that gradual ending actually took six months. Those extra months were not good for either of us. We should have recognised reality and ended the relationship earlier.

Many small and large things in our lives won’t work out. The only shame in that is when we won’t let them go.

Here is a little ancient wisdom from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible:

There is a time for everything,
    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up

These are selected verses from a longer list in Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Their message is that we need wisdom to know when to start, and wisdom to know when to stop.

4. When we can’t let go of our past

This is different from the earlier subjects, because it focuses on our internal feelings.

With people I’ve counselled, two things are often said:

  • I can never be different
  • I can never forgive myself

The first of these – the thought they could never change – imprisoned some. Usually they believed they could never escape their background. Perhaps been abused physically and/or sexually as children. Perhaps developed damaging and dangerous habits related to smoking, drinking, drugs. Perhaps grew up in an economically challenged area, with no opportunity or expectation other than drudgery, hard work and an early grave. Or perhaps been raised in such a privileged environment that later on they couldn’t relate to anyone from any other background.

The challenge for these folk was believing – really believing – it was possible to be different. That the old was yesterday and the new is today and those ‘days’ won’t be the same.

Not for a moment did I ever suggest that was easy. And very few changed overnight, so my ‘yesterday’ and ‘today’ statement shouldn’t be taken literally. But a new beginning really is possible. I’ve seen it happen with people from their teens through middle age to old age. The grip of what controls us can be broken.

The second statement – that they can’t forgive themselves – is a curious one. Why curious? Because often the full version is: ‘I know God can forgive me, but I can never forgive myself’. The cheating spouse can’t let go of their guilt for such an enormous betrayal. Or the exam cheat is dogged by knowing they didn’t deserve their degree, their job, their salary. God says they’re forgiven, but they can’t accept it.

I’ve never been a priest (just as well since I have a wife and four children) but have acted in a priestly way for some tortured by their past failings. They’ve told me exactly what they did (confession) and how they don’t live like that now (repentance). I’ve been able to assure them of God’s forgiveness and tell them his will now is that they release their guilt burden and live with no sense of condemnation (restoration/renewal). God has cast their sins into the deepest sea and erected a sign saying ‘No fishing’. Truly ‘the old has gone, the new is here!’ (2 Corinthians 5:17) Not all have found peace, but, with help, many have.

For every person who ever breathed, there have been days which were good and days which were bad. But those days are gone now. I sometimes tell myself that past things have drifted down river and round a bend, and they’ll never flow upstream back to me. Today is a new day. A good day. And there are better things to do than grieve over my old typewriter, film camera, unfulfilled goals, or past sins. Yesterday is yesterday.