April 24, 2009
Hung Out to Dry
In contentious situations, yes even in the church, it’s not unusual to feel like you’re in complete agreement with some of your fellow committee members…that is until you get into the actual meeting. Then it’s like the Tower of Babel all over again and no one is speaking your language. The other day I lamented to a fellow believer that I felt I been hung out to dry and he said, “Look at it like this. If you weren’t ever hung out to dry, you’d always be all wet.”
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I love your fellow believer’s response! It is a big part of why the Lord confused the languages at the Tower of Babel and sent everybody off to different corners of the world. You expected a building-the-tower experience in your meeting: everyone in agreement having identical ideas, harmony of goals, and unified plans. Of course, then, someone would have had to conduct this orchestra of unity toward the production of a marvelous symphony. But all of that falls well short of human nature and rational reality. People are deeply different in their experiences and perspectives, so they are going to see things from a variety of angles and pay their respect to different objectives. As complex as situations are in this world, no single mind can see all angles involved nor all the relevant objectives. Therefore the variety of many minds is better utilized when those minds are not directed to play the same symphony. When different ideas are allowed to freely rise and fairly compete, the solution constructed from them will often be unlike the solution any one mind had brought to the table. And it is often the better solution, for the personal liabilities of any one controlling mind will not become replicated into the conclusion by everyone else trying to be yes-men.
-----The Lord needed the different families of peoples to be working out solutions for their own situations, freely addressing the problems most relevant to themselves, and thus to be allowing a viable human existence to emerge from all their interactions. So also a good meeting needs the different members to produce ideas from their own perspectives and allow a viable solution to emerge from their interaction. When such a meeting has happened as well as it might, then I believe every member will leave it feeling somewhat hung out and dried.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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