Trust

February 18, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Here’s to the enforcers

I’ve realized a lot about myself as a leader since last March. You know what I figured out just last week? I probably knew it but I never really put it into words? I hate being an enforcer. I can do it, but I hate it.

“No, no, you have to wear a mask when you come in on Sunday. No, you really have to wear a mask. No, it actually has to go over your nose. That’s the whole point. Really.”

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Did I mention that I hate it?

I said as much last week in my Sunday message, as I made a larger point about how hardship can–not every time, but many times–shape us closer into the image of God.

As I repeated, “I hate it,” for the fourth or fifth time, I began to see knowing looks, heads nodding slightly, in the congregation. Ah, I thought, those are the other enforcers out there. They hate it, too.

We’re doing the work–however imperfectly–to lead through a pandemic.

None of us are enjoying this. None of us.

So, here’s to the enforcers–to the principals, the supervisors, the coaches, the teachers, the pastors, the administrators, the flight attendants, and everybody else whose job descriptions include looking out for other folks. You’re exhausted, too, and we know it.

Thank you, enforcers, for the hours spent pouring over public health orders, crafting safety plans, revising safety plans, communicating the new and newly revised safety plans, and then making those safety plans happen in the face of constant suspicion (at best) and outright hostility (at worst).

Thank you, enforcers, for keeping us safe.

September 29, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Frustration

(Adapted from a sermon preached September 6, 2020.)

Remember the movie Bruce Almighty, about the man whom God allows to be God just for a while? There’s a scene, early in the movie, in which Bruce is done, just done. He’s tired of his mediocre job, his mediocre apartment, his mediocre life, and he blames his mediocrity on God.

“God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but He’d rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.”

Bruce may have not been altogether wrong. Bear with me.

This is a meditation on frustration. [Read more…]

May 19, 2020 | 1 Comment

Fires, Locusts, and COVID-19: A Closer Look at 2 Chronicles 7

This is the transcript from a weekly v-blog posted to the Facebook page of the First Presbyterian Church of La Junta, Colorado.

“You get what you get”

My daughter was not an easy toddler. Or preschooler. Or youngster, for that matter. But let’s start at the beginning.

At her first preschool, at the age of 2, she staged what her teachers called “the great candy raid,” involving several children in the scaling of a half-wall, into a storage area of their classroom, during naptime. The teachers complimented her on her leadership and organizational skills before calling the school psychologist, whose advice to us amounted to, “Good luck with her.”

At her next preschool, she exhibited a similar lack of remorse for wrongdoing. Sent to the director’s office for some wrongdoing and told to sit against the wall, she managed to find a spare thread and began unravelling the carpet, row by row. By the time the director returned, a decent sized square of her office was down to the padding. It wasn’t pretty.

At her third and final preschool before beginning kindergarten, we registered her and then waited for the phone call. And waited. And waited. Finally, after about a month, I approached the new director. “Any problems?” She looked at her curiously. No. “Really?” No. “You haven’t had any problems with her?” No. I explained some of the problems she’d had at the other preschools. The director looked at her surprised. “No, no. She’s fine. We just tell her, ‘You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.’” The director shrugged. “That’s all it takes.”

You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit. If she behaved, she was rewarded. If she misbehaved, she was punished. Period.

It worked on my daughter, because it was clear and predictable. No negotiation. No room for response. No so-called love and logic. An eye for an eye. A tit for a tat. Period.

This is human reason at its simplest: cause and effect. But, as David Hume was quick to point out long ago, the effect we predict is not necessarily, well, necessary. Our ideas of cause and effect are formed by habit, largely, rather than real observation or experience.

I’m digressing a little bit, and you’re wondering where this is going, so let me just cut to the chase and show you what I’ve been ruminating on, several times, during this coronavirus quarantine.

Here it is, in the form of a meme I found on social media this morning, though it’s been forwarded to me several times in different media.

It’s simple cause and effect: We’ve been wicked, so God is punishing us. If we humble ourselves and pray, God will bless us. It’s “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit” taken to a cosmic level, right? But does it hold up?

Let’s dig deeper.

[Read more…]

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