When NFL quarterback Dan Marino announced his retirement recently, he alluded to “feeling a great sense of loss at the moment.”

For most of his life, his internal clock centered on playing football. All year long, he was either playing football or getting ready to play football. During the season, his entire week centered on practicing, studying the opposition's defense, and preparing for game day.

No longer will he step onto the field as a player, nor will he be part of the team experience as star quarterback. His aging body can no longer respond to the demands of professional football. Marino recognized it was time to quit.

At the same time, Marino is discovering that retiring is leaving this huge void in his life. There will be great adjustments ahead. As he put it, “I'm going to miss it. I'm going to miss everything about it... Most of all I am going to miss Sunday afternoons.” He is struggling with that sense of loss.

In a recent conference on “coaching congregations through change,” consultant George Bullard stated that when something changes, the first emotional experience persons feel is loss. Bullard stated that people, and congregations, were able to adjust to change more readily when the perceived gains from the change were greater than the perceived losses.

Marino is still working through his perception of losses and gains. However, his retirement announcement brought to mind several facts about change in general:

” We live in a changing world. Hardly anything stays the same anymore. The owner of a small company had a practice of recognizing people personally after they had worked for the company a year. The owner would go into the plant where the first-year employee was working, give a short speech of appreciation, and then produce a beautiful gift, the company's logo, on a sterling-silver tie tack in a velvet-covered box.

One day the owner was making his presentation to a young man who had just completed his first year. The young man opened the box, took out the beautiful tie-tack, and said, “Man, this is beautiful!” Then he calmly stuck it into the lobe of his left ear.” Things change, and we don't always grasp the changes.

” Change is inevitable, but people naturally resist change. Someone said, “There are only two things a good church member won't tolerate. The first is change. The other is doing things the same old way.” The reality is that we are never going to stop change. We may chose to stop changing, but we will not stop change. We must adapt. The real question is: at what rate will you allow change in your life?

” Dealing with change is hard work. Change stretches our comfort level and affects the security of our routine. Like Marino is finding, there are losses to work through and adjustments to be made. Working through significant changes takes lots of emotional energy.

” We need to celebrate positive changes because they are stepping stones to personal growth. We tend to get comfortable doing the same things we've always done. Yet the more comfortable we become, the more complacent we become. Positive change is necessary because it brings personal growth. Even though we prefer status quo, change can be good. Change is not a dirty word when it brings enrichment.

” We need to accept change as part of life. Those who learn to adapt are the happiest people in life. When Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone in 1876, no one could imagine the results. Nor was everyone excited about the possibilities. An American mayor went out on a limb when he predicted, “One day there'll be one in every city.” In England, the chief engineer of the post office, Sir William Preece, told a group of men, “The Americans have need of the telephones, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.”

They could not imagine in their short-sightedness the impact that this change would have upon communications and future technology.

The Rev. Dr. David L. Chancey is pastor of McDonough Road Baptist Church in Fayetteville.

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