Thursday, March 12, 2015

An old car and a bad cup of coffee


My car is old and the coffee was bad.  But I felt that I just had to hold on to that cup of coffee.  I drive an older car, not really an antique, but one that is old enough that it was built before the invention of, or at least the application of, cup holders.  There isn’t a single cup holder in my car; nothing that can even vaguely be used as a cup holder.  Usually this is not a problem.  But last week I had a breakfast meeting and, after we finished, I got a cup of coffee to go.  This was bad coffee, not just generally bad, but a kind of uniquely bad cup of coffee.  The kind of coffee that if brewed to full strength would remind you of the smell of stale cigarette breath.  However, this coffee was brewed weak; so, it was the worst of all worlds.

After I took off from this meeting and got on the highway I discovered how bad this coffee was.  Now I have a problem.  I’m not going to litter and throw the cup out of the car.  If I try to pour it out the window, I could end up having it blow back into the car.  Being on a tight schedule, I didn’t want to take time to pull off the road to pour it out.  I tried to set it on the floor in front of the passenger seat, but I was afraid that a curve, quick stop, bump, or some other unforeseen event would spell disaster.  I thought about putting it between my legs, but the cup was a pretty flimsy cup.  So, I rode along holding a cup of coffee I didn’t want and from time to time absent-mindedly sipping bad coffee I didn’t want to drink.  Thankfully, after about half an hour, I came to a town and was forced to stop, so I tossed the coffee out.  

I sometimes feel I must hold on to things that are a real encumbrance to my emotional, personal, and spiritual wellbeing.  I hold on to them because if I hold them then some how I am in control.  If I am in control, then I can make sure everything is going to be okay. 

The feeling of control is like hold the coffee cup rather than letting it sit on the floor.  I feel like being in control is the only way to prevent disaster.  If I have control everything is going to be okay, right?  Trusting important matters to forces or people that are not under my control seems too risky.  But is it really that secure?   Will my holding the cup prevent bumps, curves, crazy drivers, (who are distracted by sipping good coffee), from coming my way?  Holding on to the cup or trying to have control gives an illusion of security, familiarity, and safety.  But my being in control is nothing more than the illusion of security.  In fact, my holding the cup of coffee may reduce my ability to drive and make me inherently more at risk.

Wanting to be in control is also like sipping bad coffee, in that I may want something better, but instead I just slowly drink the same old swill.  When I am trying to control people or circumstances, the possibility for real improvement in those people or circumstances is limited to my abilities to solve their problems.  I have linked myself to this miserable reality and as long as I try to stay in control I am bound to it and have to hold it.  If I don’t want the bad coffee, I just need to do what is necessary to put it down. 

So, if I am miserable, I need to ask myself what am I trying to control and what do I need to put down so I am less miserable.  There is no middle ground and half choices.  I have to let stuff go or I have to accept the misery of the attachments.  Here are a few things I have decided to let go.  Please understand I am on the front end of a lot of these things, so I am far from complete in this process.

Material possesions.  Recently, I have been wondering if I own the stuff or if the stuff owns me.  I started looking at stuff differently.  I tried to look at stuff as tenants or renters.  In exchange for me providing a place for them to live, they provide me services.  If what they provided in terms of service was un-needed or useless, I had to reconsider their rental agreement. 
Me: “So you want to live in my house for another year?  What payments are you offering?”
High school year book: “Once every 2 or 3 years, when you take me out, I will remind you of what life was like when you were 16 years old, the fun, laughter, and clubs, with profound reminders of rejections, insecurities, and the remarkable stupidity of some of your decisions.”
I did not renew the lease.
Maybe I lack adequate nostalgia, but the fact is, that if I had a tenant that offered nothing of value for the space they want to consume I would break the lease.  So, I have been purging of late.  Books that were cutting edge in the 1970’s, and trophies that have been meaningless for a long time.  Mementos from events I barely remember and cared about even less.   Even my high school letter, I sent to the quarter back club and suggested they put it in their trophy case.  BAHAHAHA.
I am still in process, but I don’t want my stuff to own me.

Ministry tools and concepts.  Elmer Towns said and perhaps he was quoting someone else, “Methods are many.  Principles are few.  Methods may change but principles never do.”  In our years of ministry, we developed our preferred methods, tools, and concepts that have at one time been very useful and productive.  But we can become so attached to these methods, we sacrifice effective ministry to be faithful and loyal to a certain way of doing ministry. 
I have known godly ministers that have waned in their effectiveness because they were unable to let certain methods go.  These were not bad pastors, but they failed to link their diminishing return of the ministry with tools and concepts that needed to be replaced. 
There are certain things I always loved to do in ministry.  But in this season of life I am spending time asking how effective these things were.  If I did them because I loved to do them, but they were not effective, then they need to be set aside.  I need to ask what are the principles that will never change and can be used in any culture and context and what are hand tools for the moment.   This may include a hard look at the methods associated with my own fellowship/denomination/tradition.  Because I was raised in a certain religious stream does not mean that religious stream must be exempt from careful scrutiny.  What if I find that the way I was brought up doing something, is a method and not a principle?  What if that method is not optimally effective; dare I consider breaking with a life long tradition?
Transportation is a principle buggy whips are a method.  I have determined to sell my buggy whips no matter how skillfully made or how useful it may have been.

Most importantly, I want to get rid of my emotional stuff.  I can, if I let myself, list the people who have hurt me and mistreated me and work up a lot of emotion about it.   I can list wounds, large and small, real and imagined, public and private that date back for decades.  I have a choice to carry those around.  I can sip the bitter swill of my injuries time and time again.  It is not a pleasant drink, but it is familiar.  I know who all the players are, who is in the right and who is in the wrong and how I can manipulate the circumstances for my advantage, or at least have a good pity party.  But, honestly, it isn’t much of a way to live; in fact, it sucks pretty bad.  I want to lay down all that garbage.  Not in a sense of denial, it never happened, nor in rationalization, pretending like it is no big deal.  It did happen and it was a big deal, but as long as I sip from that bitter cup I can have nothing else to drink.  And I want something better.

Reprise: With enough courage you can live without a reputation.  So here is where I find myself.  I am tired of being owned by my materialism, I want to be free from ineffective methodology even if it was the way I was raised, and I want to be free from the wounds, patterns, and the neurosis that have defined me. 
I realize that this kind of change will not be easy or quick.  I also realize I have a long way to go, further to go than I have come.  I realize that these kinds of changes can ruin a reputation.  But to quote Rhett Butler, “Scarlet, with enough courage you can live without a reputation.”

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