Navigating Life In A World Of Change

Last week we considered the subtle settling of our expectations.

> I want to continue in a similar way with what the Lord has to say to us about going through CHANGES in life

To help us realize just how much change we live is… consider the foolowing changes over just the past 11 years..

100 YEARS AGO

The average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three minute call

from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved

roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily

populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents,

California was only the twenty-first most populous state in the

Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in the U.S. was twenty-two cents an hour. The

average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist

$2500 per year, a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000 per year, and a

mechanical engineer about $5000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the United States took place at

home.

Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education.

Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned

In the press and by the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg

yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country

for any reason, either as travelers or immigrants.

The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza

2. Tuberculosis

3. Diarrhea

4. Heart disease

5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii

and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.

Drive-by-shootings -- in which teenage boys galloped down the street

on horses and started randomly shooting at houses, carriages, or

anything

else that caught their fancy -- were an ongoing problem in Denver and

other

cities in the West.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was thirty. The remote desert

community was inhabited by only a handful of ranchers and their

families.

Plutonium, insulin, and antibiotics hadn’t been discovered yet. Scotch

tape, crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been

invented.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

One in ten U.S. adults couldn’t read or write. Only 6 percent of all

Americans had graduated from high school.

Some medical authorities warned that professional seamstresses were

apt to become sexually aroused by the steady rhythm, hour after hour,

of the sewing machine’s foot pedals. They recommended slipping bromide

-- which was thought to diminish sexual desire -- into the women’s

drinking water.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at

corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the

complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the

bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine.

Punch card data processing had recently been developed, and early

predecessors of the modern computer were used for the first time by

the government to help compile the 1900 census.

Eighteen percent of households in the United States had at least one

full-time servant or domestic.

There were about 230 reported murders in the U.S.annually.

There are changes we may feel on many levels as we seek to navigate life in this new year.

Cultural – increasing all around us

• More information has been produced in the last thirty years than in the previous five thousand years.

• More than one-half the scientists who have ever lived are alive today.

Ninety per cent of all the items in the supermarket today did not exist ten years ago.

• It is estimated that fifty per cent of college graduates are going into jobs which did not exist when they were born.

• It is also estimated that ninety per cent of the businesses in the United States today were started in the last twenty five years.

One man put it this way:

"My great-grandfather rode a horse, but was afraid of the train.

My grandfather rode on a train, but was afraid of a car.

My father rode in a car, but was afraid of an airplane.

I ride in an airplane, but I’m afraid of a horse."

Personally- New jobs, new children… loss of jobs… loved ones… new relationship… or loss of one