The First Impulse and
the Last Option The Rev. Fred G. Garry - March 18, 2001
Texts: Isaiah 55 and Luke 13 It is inevitable, a sure bet. It goes
without saying that at some point each night, one of my five
children will spill their milk or the milk of someone nearby.
Now Kathy has dramatically increased the odds of this happening
by having them set the table for dinner. This setting includes
filling the milk glasses. Each one has their particular and peculiar
fashion or style of doing this. Laura is silent and methodical;
Joshua is always interesting as to which glasses he will give
to whom; and Zoe, well, Zoe is usually in mid song providing
her own special flair. Ethan by the way has yet to be brought
into this work party so he watches with a kind of blissful, uniformed
longing to someday be able.
Although they each do it differently,
there is a common denominator to their task and it is not pouring.
The common denominator of their task is spilling. I am not always
home so perhaps this is a special treat they reserve only for
me, but I have yet to see my children pour the milk without spilling
anywhere from a splash to a counter full. This doesn't seem to
bother them. There is no gasping, no shouting, and no fear. It
seems such spilling has become so common that it is simply part
of the process. At first glance I am always led to point this
out and with larger spills I must confess there is an impulse
in me to offer a word of critique. Yet the more I watch, the
more I have become aware of the well established operational
policy that is understood by all, except me it would seem, "don't
cry over spilt milk."
Not crying over spilt milk is an old
adage, an adage that might be amended today to read, "don't
get upset over spilt milk," for the older notion of cry
would be to shout or to raise your voice, and not so much to
weep or shed tears. Both connotations work though. The idea is
to not get upset, not cry out, or lose composure over something
trivial. And I must say that this is certainly the policy Kathy
has put into place for our horde of unruly milk spillers and
it works. There is no crying or crying out over milk spilled.
A sponge is simply retrieved or passed- depending on who it was
that did the spilling. Now if this gracious rule could simply
be expanded to include siblings sitting in someone's chair or
the selection of television programs we would be close to a near
perfect world. But, alas!
Recently I completed a very interesting
study as part of my preparations for Princeton in May. The preparations
were a series of texts having to do with organizations, businesses
mainly, but also corporations or boards such as a church might
have. In each one, professors detailed studies, tests, experiments
and research into how organizations learn from their mistakes,
or better yet how they learn given the inevitability of error,
misdirection, or failure. Again and again as I turned page after
page there were two adages that kept coming to mind. The first
was "don't cry over spilt milk." The second was, "repent
and believe."
Midway through the largest of the books
I couldn't help but consider writing the author, Professor Argyris,
saying, "if you are looking for corroborating evidence outside
the business world for your research you should come to my house
for dinner." For the very same thing he was saying scientifically
I have had the privilege of observing domestically for years
now which is this. Common mistakes are readily accepted, expected,
and to some degree create a certain level of comfort. There is
something affirming even about the common errors we all make.
This perspective is often expressed when
we say, "he or she is human too." Meaning, we have
now seen that this person makes mistakes like us, so now we can
accept them. The ability to make mistakes, paradoxically is important
to an organization, not only in terms of how we respond to them,
but also in being accepted into one. Imagine your feeling toward
a co-worker or a boss who never seemed to make a mistake, was
never in error, was never late, or never failed. Most if not
all would treat this seemingful perfection with suspicion not
praise, Hence it would appear from the research of many that
our acceptance in an organization is often determined more by
our ability to fail than to succeed.
Now this is, of course, tempered by the
kind of failure or mistake we are talking about and, sometimes,
of whom we are speaking. Bill Cosby many years ago described
this wen when he told of a man going in for surgery on his foot.
The man was under local anesthesia and thus was awake during
the operation. Returning to his magazine after being greeting
by the surgeon he could hear the doctor methodically call for
instruments for each step. "Scalpel, forceps, clamps, oops."
At this point the patient says, "what did you say?"
"Nothing," said the surgeon, "I didn't say anything.
Go back to your magazine." "No wait a minute,"
said the man, "I know what I do when I say 'oops.' What
did you do when you said 'oops?"'
The kind of mistake it turns out changes
the first rule. Where common trivial mistakes seem to build solidarity,
larger failures or mistakes of greater complexity have the opposite
effect. When these occurs researches have noticed three trends
in the work place and organizations. The first is a proclivity
to blame in a way that is meant to produce shame; the second
is tendency to avoid speaking of the difficulty creating a category
they call the "unspeakable unspoken"; the third, is
perhaps the most challenging. It would appear that as a result
of the first two, mistakes of greater effect systematically lower
the expectations and thus the effectiveness of the organization.
Hence, the mistake by receiving blame and then becoming part
of a general silence actually becomes a kind of unofficial policy
of the organization. Failure then becomes a policy.
About midway through these tomes of statistics,
descriptions and system theories I couldn't help but smile. I
have to admit that I usually enjoy business management texts
and smile for the simple reason of discovery being so untrained
in the art of administration. But this time I smiled because
here in the midst of these experiments and flowcharts, at the
very center of the surveys and ratios was the heart of our tradition
and worship. For the very heart of our tradition and worship
is a belief and trust in confession and forgiveness.
Nearly five hundred years ago the Reformers
led by Luther and Calvin made a very basic claim: we live better,
we axe better, stronger, purer by forgiving one another. Moreover,
our forgiveness is healing, godly; when we forgive one another
then we live as God intended and this living is redeeming, redemptive:
it restores us. And the opposite side is true. If we confess,
if we repent, this is healing and redemptive. By confessing our
sins, they argued, we allow God to restore our souls. This was
their radical message of reformation.
Now the established church was all right
with this message until they amended it to say that it was free
and there was nothing we could do to achieve it or deserve it.
We have to forgive without condition, and to confess knowing
that forgiveness is unconditional. While this amendment may appear
innocuous to us it put quite a damper on the practice of indulgences
which was the buying and selling of forgiveness by the church,
a kind of advance forgiveness ticket sale that built many cathedrals.
In spite of the opposition though the
Reformers carried the day because of the truth of their doctrine,
and it didn't hurt that their doctrine had good financial implications
for the local businesses and landowners. But again, alas!
I was intrigued to see this same debate,
this same principle being explored as uncharted waters in the
current business research. The theory they espoused was simple:
the greater we trust forgiveness and confession, the more likely
we will be to achieve greater success, to avoid the mistake in
the future, and create a climate of honest debate and reflection.
If you have been reading the papers recently there have seen
a number of examples of the opposite. The sub accident and the
blame game being played out before us is one; the fight between
the city council and the mayor is another. In each one there
is an attempt to secure fault, to silence challenge, and inevitably
to ensure the repetition of the mistake, error, or problem.
As I came to the end of the readings
I have to complete for Princeton in May I had the same conclusion
as I do when I read of the above stories in the newspaper. The
conclusion is the one the reformers came to, the one Jesus taught,
and the one Isaiah offered the ancient Israelites: repentance
is the key to success. Or as Bob Dylan said, "there is no
success like failure, and failure is no success at all."
There is no success, true success without
failure, yet we are prone to avoid the potential of failure at
all costs. At the heart of Jesus' teaching about repentance are
powerful and profound notions concerning our acceptance by God,
our identity being restored in love of Christ, and the nature
of sacrifice, giving up life for another, for us. And by in large
as Christians we have come to believe this and trust these deep
and profound truths: God loves us unconditionally and offers
us the freedom of forgiveness through the life death and resurrection
of his son. Somehow even though we believe this and trust this
at a deep level, a spiritual and soulful level, even though we
believe this we have great difficulty accepting this in our everyday.
Everyday we have moments, challenging
moments that are home of difficulty, error, mistake or failure.
And while deep inside we believe in confession and forgiveness,
we even have confessions about forgiveness, even though we believe
and trust in God's readiness and ability to heal a broken and
contrite heart, we can very often live in a way that is just
like a business. Facing difficulty or error in our home, our
self, our church, our career we can seek blame, we can become
silent, or we can simply lower our expectations.
Let's do something different. Let's take
note this week, this month of how we respond to this, how we
deal with these moments. Asking, is our confidence in repentance
and confession? Are we willing to guide and be guided toward
this or do we play the blame game? Are we more willing to trust
silence than confession? Deep inside we know we only achieve
freedom in confession, in repentance, yet how are we living?
Are we simply lowering our expectations until we are skeptical
of everything? There is another way. Make a start this Lenten
season. Take note of how you view problems and failures asking,
what is my confidence? Am I saying, doing, hoping for what is
best? Amen.
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