The Problem with Assumptions

“They’re drunk on cheap wine.” --Acts 2:13

 Can you believe that the Bible talks about people being intoxicated?  The scripture verse is actually a quote from a casual observer of the disciples.  This person could tell by the way they were talking that they had far too much to drink.

A couple years ago, I was driving on Pendleton Street in Easley, SC getting ready to take the acceleration ramp to Highway 123.  Before I could turn, a driver nearly missed the turn and swerved wildly onto the ramp.  She was off the road and then on the road (and then off again).  I couldn’t believe that I was following a drunk driver!  I called the police and followed her to a traffic light.  The light was red, but she did not stop until the middle of the intersection.  As people tried to avoid hitting her, she was startled by the truck honking a horn in front of her so that she bolted through the intersection.  She continued for almost a mile driving quite erratically.  I was on the phone with the police while I followed.  The next thing I knew, she bumped into the back of a car that was stopped for another traffic light.  I pulled close enough to her bumper so that she could not back up and get away. 

Once the police arrived at the scene of the accident and interviewed everyone, I asked if the woman was okay.  To be honest, I really wanted to know why they had not put handcuffs on her yet.  The police officer explained that the woman was a diabetic according to her bracelet and that she was likely dealing with severe health effects of low blood sugar.  They had given her a small piece of candy, and an ambulance was on the way. Boy, had I made an assumption, or what?

Those watching the disciples on the day of Pentecost got it wrong, too.  They assumed that they were drunk on new wine (The Message says ‘cheap,’ I assume, because newer wine is cheaper – irony intended). Because their basic assumptions were wrong, Peter had to stand and explain the meaning of the event that the crowd was witnessing.

Oftentimes we struggle, we strain, we work to battle against the things that are making our lives difficult. If only we could push a big, red button and fix the problems out there everything would be fine.  But what if we are wrong?  What if our assumptions have missed the mark?  Could we be trying to solve a problem that isn’t the problem?

Enter the movie “The King’s Speech” which is based on the true story of King George VI who battled a speech impediment.  One of the earliest scenes has a doctor instructing him first to smoke (it relaxes the larynx) and then to stuff his mouth full of marbles.  The future king nearly chokes!  Trying to find help, the king’s wife enlists the assistance of a speech therapist who quickly concludes that the problem is not a physical issue at all.  All other attempts were failing because they were treating his mouth and throat when many of his issues were based on triggers and fears present in his mind.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “Don’t judge according to appearances. Judge with right judgment.” John 7:24  In other words, be careful of assumptions.  And when it comes to problems that we are having with others, the first assumptions to question belong to the person in the mirror.

Grace and Peace,

It IS a Matter of Life or Death

¹⁹ I call heaven and earth as my witnesses against you right now: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life—so that you and your descendants will live

—  Deuteronomy 30:19

           Here the people of Israel have a clear choice placed in front of them.  They can either strive to live as God’s chosen people, as a people of covenant, or they can choose something else.  The path splits before them toward either life or death.  I have always fought hard against black and white, yes or no, either/or scenarios.  Most often this type of thinking does not lend itself to finding creative ways through challenges.

            But is there a time that it is either choosing life or choosing death?  The second law of thermodynamics states that, unless work is done to the contrary, systems move toward entropy – they lose energy.  The same is true for organizations and for individuals.  We are constantly being renewed or we are moving slowly toward death.  I have often thought, especially in the church, that people would always choose life.  Christ came so that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).

            Wouldn’t the people who are leaders within Christ’s Body want to move toward life as well?  We start with the best intentions and on a beautiful journey toward richness and fullness of life.  We find ways in which the Holy Spirit works and moves and breathes, and we pattern our worship, our meetings, and even our structure to be receptive. 

            And then things change.  They always have. It is one of the constants of human existence. The world changes, but all too often we don’t.  Instead of changing in response to the world in which God is constantly transforming, the church changes goals: “to serve the needs of others in the [church] rather than those of [the world]. (Quinn, DCFG 35)”  We are silent because our “self-interest is best served by not antagonizing” the higher-ups.  We remain silent.  Instead we become accomplices in the process of slow death within the local church.

            Robert Quinn describes it in this way in his book, Deep Change,

            In choosing slow death, the decision makers may fully recognize the pressures for change. Instead of initiating the change, however, they choose to do other things. In this sense, the phenomenon of choosing slow death is not the same phenomenon as the often-told boiled frog story.

            The boiled frog story is based on a laboratory experiment. A live frog is placed in a container of water that is gradually heated. Eventually the water boils, and the frog dies. In contrast, if a frog is taken from cold water and placed in a container of hot water, it immediately jumps out and thus manages to survive. Organizations are said to be like the frogs in the experiment. They are likely to be unconscious of slowly evolving changes.

            The boiled frog metaphor does not capture an important aspect of the deep change or slow death phenomenon. When an executive admits that a change is needed but opts not to make it, the executive is making a conscious choice. The water is slowly heating up, and the executive knows that a leap to safety is possible, the strategic thought being, "If I can hang on just a couple of more years, this problem will belong to someone else." However, when the executive leaps to safety, the rest of the workforce is left with the problem. In this sense, the choice of slow death might be referred to as the "dead tadpole story." The frog leaps to safety, and the tadpoles are left to boil. In this scenario, self-interest triumphs over collective responsibility.  (Deep Change, Quinn)

God help us if we as pastors hold on from one church to the next waiting for the problem to belong to someone else!  The same goes true for parents with children in a dysfunctional school system, workers in a business that is killing itself, or even trying to outlast the latest “stinker” of a politician recently elected.

            The way to address the need for a deep and abiding change in a system comes from an unexpected place.  We must begin with ourselves.  We be active in real-time learning, establishing new ways of thinking and behaving, and forming new assumptions. (DCFG, p39) Why do we do all of this? Because God so loved the world, and so should we…Our love for people, for specific individual people can drive our passion and ignite our fire.  We do this not for climbing the ladder or for obtaining status, but that the world might move from death to life as they get to know the one who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  We have to lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and run with endurance this race for life that is set before us (Hebrews 12:31).

            It time to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2) so that we can figure out what God’s will is.

And, yes, heaven help us!

Grace and Peace,

But I Don’t Have Time to Stop

 Be still and know that I AM

            --God

Psalm 46:10

               4 Then somewhere he said this about the seventh day of creation: God rested on the seventh day from all his works.[a] 5 But again, in the passage above, God said, They will never enter my rest![b] 6 Therefore, it’s left open for some to enter it, and the ones who had the good news preached to them before didn’t enter because of disobedience. 7 Just as it says in the passage above, God designates a certain day as “today,” when he says through David much later, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, don’t have stubborn hearts.’

            8 If Joshua gave the Israelites rest, God wouldn’t have spoken about another day later on. 9 So you see that a Sabbath rest is left open for God’s people. 10 The one who entered God’s rest also rested from his works, just as God rested from his own.

First summary of the message

            11 Therefore, let’s make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following the same example of disobedience, --Hebrews 4:4-11

" But I Don’t Have Time to Stop"

How many times have I whispered those words under my breath?  It is a constant frenzy of activity that all too often drives us from an event to a meeting to a project to a ‘situation’…the list never ends.  We just know that if we stop, everything that we are holding so precariously will simply collapse on the floor around us, and we’ll have an even bigger mess.  For this state of frenzy, I have many examples as to why this is untrue, but I will share two.

In his book “The Deep Change Field Guide,” Robert Quinn shares the story of a hermit that lived in the woods.  Each summer he would cut enough wood to heat his cabin through the winter. One day, however, he heard the weather forecast that a huge storm was coming much earlier than previous years.  It would be here later that day.  The hermit sprinted to his woodpile. As he picked up his saw to begin, he could see that he had not yet taken the time to sharpen the blade. “No matter,” he thought,” I just need to get as much done as I can.” He began to cut.  The more he cut wood, the duller the blade became.  He told himself over and over that he needed to stop and sharpen the saw, but he just kept cutting out of panic.  As the snow began to fall, he plopped exhausted beside a huge pile of uncut wood.

The second story goes like this: once upon a time, there wasn’t even time; there was nothing at all.  With words never before heard, God sang everything into existence – in 6 days. (don’t get lost in the millions of years / six days thing…hang on!) Then something truly amazing happened.  God wasn’t tired, didn’t need a sports drink, or an Epsom salt bath.  God did something to show us the pattern for our lives.  On the seventh day, God stopped and rested.

God heals and nurtures in the pauses of life.  When we are still, God speaks.  If we continue into the busyness of trying to bring order to chaos, we will never recognize when we get trapped in the perpetual movement instead of forward momentum.  I think that it is an evil voice that tells us that we must keep busy, especially when it’s doing God’s work.  We begin to think that doing church is the same as being the church.

Again, in Quinn’s DCFG, he says,”[people] prefer to stay where they are comfortable.  But they need an excuse to do so. ‘We have no time’ neutralizes personal responsibility.  That mentality lets [people] trade deep change  now for a crisis that will occur in the future… most of us tend to ignore warning signals that suggest a need for change. As performance levels fall, our stress goes up, and our vitality and drive wane. Our focus narrows, and we increase our commitment to existing strategies, making it difficult to change.” (page 19)

God wants us to break the cycle of self-destructive behavior.  In order to do that, we all need to take time to stop, to wait, and to be still.  When we do, God will speak and guide, and we will be blessed.

Grace and Peace,

Necessary Endings

Ecclesiastes 3Common English Bible (CEB)

A season for everything

   3 There’s a season for everything

    and a time for every matter under the heavens:

2     a time for giving birth and a time for dying,

    a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted,

3     a time for killing and a time for healing,

    a time for tearing down and a time for building up,

4     a time for crying and a time for laughing,

    a time for mourning and a time for dancing,

5     a time for throwing stones and a time for gathering stones,

    a time for embracing and a time for avoiding embraces,

6     a time for searching and a time for losing,

    a time for keeping and a time for throwing away,

7     a time for tearing and a time for repairing,

    a time for keeping silent and a time for speaking,

8     a time for loving and a time for hating,

    a time for war and a time for peace.

Over the last few years, I have struggled with making my raised bed garden produce like my garden did years ago.  I cannot tell you how many hours and how many resources I have poured into those beds.  I have been largely unsuccessful. I can get a few tomatoes and maybe a cucumber or two, but not much else.  After taking soil samples to the Clemson extension office nearby, I discovered that my soil was too rich; I had so much organic material in my garden that the needed nutrients were unavailable to the plants.  Even removing some of the soil and replacing with unamended dirt last year, the results were poor at best.

Enter Dr. Henry Cloud who wrote the book Necessary Endings. He calls our attention to the Ecclesiastes passage above and notes that for every positive action that happens, there is a correlating ending.  Endings are natural in life.  In fact, many times we suffer in life because we continue to try to sustain activities, projects, or even relationships that have really come to the point of needing a necessary, and natural, ending.

So, I celebrate a natural ending today.  I have dismantled my raised bed garden.  I will soon work to restore the ground to its previous grassy open area.  I have decided that I am okay with the fact that I will not have a regular garden while I live in town.  I have my raspberries, my blueberries, perhaps some peaches.  I also have a herb garden with oregano, basil, and rosemary. Perhaps I will find some additional things to plant alongside these.  

I am trying to learn to accept that sometimes, endings are necessary.  Many times, God led the people of Israel from one place to another in the wilderness as they wandered toward the Promised Land.  With each ending, we leave room for God to make new beginnings and provide new opportunities.

So, I choose not to grieve the ending of my garden,but to celebrate the new way in which God will move in the future.

Grace and Peace,