大象传媒

From Leslie Griffiths, Methodist Minister:听听听听听听听

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Fifty years ago this very week, at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, Bob Dylan went electric. Until then he鈥檇 been the acclaimed, almost enthroned, shining star in the Folk music firmament and his trusted acoustic guitar and harmonica (as well, of course, as his voice) were his trademark. This was one of those hinge moments when so much turns on a single event. Many in the audience that evening were shocked. Famously, one fan can be heard on the bootlegged recording of the concert shouting 鈥淛udas!鈥� This move away from his folk roots was considered by some to be a total betrayal. But that shout only served to energise Dylan, the rest of the concert rose to unprecedented heights. The die was cast, electric it was, and pop music would never be the same again.

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A couple of years earlier my mother too went electric 鈥� not a guitar - an electric cooker, a Baby Belling, gifted by someone moving away from our home town.

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My dear old mam had only ever cooked on an open fire. Everything we ate was fried or boiled. Now she had an oven and surely, we thought mouthwateringly, her repertoire would be greatly enriched.听 She considered all such thoughts a betrayal. She never opened the oven door. Everything she cooked continued to come out of the fire and into the frying pan.

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When change comes, we must make our choice either to embrace it or be left behind. Change comes like a thief in the night; we must take it or leave it. We can end up flying like eagles or earthed like ostriches.

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Bob Dylan weathered the criticisms levelled against him and got electrified. My mother resisted change and held fast to her frying pan till her dying day. An old prayer jumps up in my mind, one we might all consider in times of change: 鈥淕od grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.