I was right about one thing--the alarm did go off way too early this morning. As much as I am a morning person (which drove my co-workers crazy on the 5:30 shift at Starbucks), it still stinks to have to haul oneself out of a comfy, warm bed when dawn hasn't yet broken the skyline with the sole purpose of plodding off through the (quickly disappearing) snow to the hallowed halls of academia, set to fill one's head with all the knowledge and naivete of youth.
To qualify the above: being a "morning person" to me simply means that it doesn't take me two hours to gradually rise to a coherent state of conscious thought. No, once I am out of bed, the gears start to turn. In fact, once I'm up, there's no going back to sleep, no matter how little sleep I've had. In order to nap effectively, I must get up, go about my business, and then return to the confines of my bed at a later hour, usually in the afternoon (although I have been known to take a nap in the morning). The processor doesn't run at full capacity, and the physical manifestations of a bad night abound (red eyes, blank stares into space, etc), but at least I'm alert.
All this to say that, although I was tired, I was at least alert for class at 8:00, which is more than I can say for the good majority of my peers. It's a funny class because the prof isn't very engaging, and it's early in the morning: recipe for disaster. There are several awkward silences each session. I'm looking forward to next week, though, because we start class presentations then. It'll be interesting to see if those doing the presenting manage to remain coherent.
The remainder of the day was mostly uneventful. Watched an interesting video in my second class about casting vision and making it stick as a leader. Good stuff, and something that I've struggled with in my brief career as a leader. The bottom line is this: as leaders, we tend to blame those who follow when they don't "catch the vision" and respond appropriately. However, their failure to grasp the vision always, without exception, stems from our inability as leaders to make it stick. Although it's easier to blame the sheep for being stupid, our qualification as shepherds rest on our ability to muster the sheep and keep their attention.
It goes along with what I've learned being involved in ministry: as much as we can expect and look for the ideal, the ideal will never happen. How many pastors' problems would be solved if only everyone who came to church unquestioningly gave of their monetary resources without having to be poked in the eye with a burning stick? The ideal is that people would do that; the reality is that they just don't do it unless they see something tangible to give to.
The guy on the video today was talking about how we need to leverage our opportunities for promotion of the vision and give people something concrete to hold on to in order to win their loyalty, their time, and yes, their money. I know many who look at a concept like that and shy away in horror because of its inherent "un-spirituality", but it's simply a fact of human nature. If we are to lead well, we must understand something of the human psyche and work to get inside it. It is not manipulation, which is always done for our own gain; it is simply harnessing the tendencies already present for the greater good of the Kingdom.
That's where you get into this whole thing of oversight and how you know there's a Kingdom purpose behind actions, but that's a different ball of wax for a different day.
As if that wasn't controversial enough, in my next class, the prof, taking an example from the life of Jeremiah, told us that it was appropriate to pray for God's vengeance on our enemies. Doesn't sound very "Christian" does it? What about turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, and praying for those who persecute you? Again, nice sentiment, but how often has that worked in the past? Not very often for me.
A series of points can be made: first, vengeance is God's to take anyway, and Scripture teaches that we will receive just reward for our actions, whether good or bad. Not that our salvation is in jeopardy (sorry, Calvin), but our reward is dependent on action in this life. Second, if we know God will take vengeance on the person, when we pray for that vengeance to take place, are we not praying in line with His will? Is that ever wrong? Third, how can we possibly learn to turn the other cheek to others and not take our revenge on them ourselves if we have not first come to God and turned that right of vengeance over to Him? I'm not saying it's inappropriate to seek justice in this life (Robert Pickton, I'm looking at you), but it's also not possible to really and truly come to a point of forgiveness, and, as a result, restoration, without knowing that God will in His time punish and reward according to His scales, not ours.
An interesting arguement, anyway, even if you don't agree with it. At the very least, it challenged me to rethink the way I look at passages of Scripture such as Jeremiah 17:18b ("Bring on them a day of disaster, and crush them with twofold destruction!") and many of the imprecatory Psalms. Whether we like it or not, these passages are in Scripture and must be dealt with.
To coin Monty Python, "And now for something completely different." On the topic of the title of this posting, I had a great evening getting together with a few guys and playing Mario Party on N64. Good times. Took me back a little bit, too, to when I used to hang out with my buddies and play video games until all hours of the night. As responsible (*cough*) men now, however, we must be more choosy about the amount of time we spend playing. But it was good to hang out with them.
Turns out that I'm pretty useless at Mario Party; however, I maintain that I am quite useless at all video games when introduced to them cold turkey and expected to perform at a high level. The pressure's on becuase two of the guys had played this particular game before, and the other had played two of its later variants (and, in fact, owned the games). As a relative newbie to the Mario Party pheomenon, it was tough to just jump in and play. Lucky for me, I've been classically trained in the ancient art of controller manipulation, and my video game skills, honed for hours on end in front of the TV with my NES, transcend platform and game and are generally applicable to most video game situations. Translation: I held my own in a respectable fashion; I wasn't beaten too badly, but I was gracious enough to let the host win. See, people skills. Good times.
I also had the chance to watch some of the most boring hockey of the whole season, the NHL All-Star Game. Yawn. No need to waste more words on that sad-sack excuse for the best game in the world.
Well, as much as I tried to avoid it, looks like a midnight bedtime looms large again. D'oh! Tomorrow isn't so early, but I am meeting up with one of my project groups, so I suppose I need to be fully engaged. With that, I'll sign off for the evening. See you again tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment