Ever torn apart your garage?
Or your basement? Or that one space in your attic? Even if it is relatively organized, it still
becomes the catch all for things misplaced and unused, stored and forgotten.
Sometimes, really, the more organized it is, the more dangerous it
becomes. If it looks clean and put
together, there is no need to sort through boxes of old kid toys, Christmas
decorations, magazines, and yarn balls.
But then, sometimes, you must…
Such was a task we took on a couple of weeks ago as a staff. We tore out every box, misplaced crate of
craft supplies, and unconsidered Frisbee from underneath the forum…our “OE
basement”. Typically relatively well
maintained with classes in boxes and labeled shelves and corners for most
things to belong, it was time. Time for
an overhaul.
We unpacked boxes to make sure everything had just what it
needed and nothing it didn’t…
We created piles of legitimate garbage and others of
questionable trash…
We wiped shelves and swept floors and unloaded old plastic
milk crates filled with everything no one once-upon-a-time put away correctly.
We reevaluated every box of rocks (Literally. We run an Outdoor Education program. We have
boxes of rocks!) and mocked old posters.
And we fought.
Now, I love my coworkers.
I appreciate their personalities, their work, their dedication, their
passions for ministry and their subsequent desires and abilities to feed into
lives and to impact beyond the mere scope of their jobs. But that doesn’t make them perfect. (Please consult 94% of any of my previous
blog postings if you’re looking for me to confess I am also not. This is a point I will eagerly admit. Fit me into the mix.) And so it also doesn’t make us a perfect
team.
We fought.
And argued.
And belittled…each other, perspectives, knowledge, opinions.
A team of leaders…many head strong and opinionated…were all
right. And each more right than the others.
We can be a GREAT team.
We lean and depend on and support each other in impossibly important
ways. But, it turns out if you want true
colors of teamwork to show…you ask our team to…sort.
Yes. Sort. Organize.
And especially…throw away. That’s
what we fought about. That was the
starting point for every spat. What did
we keep, and what did we throw away?
And it’s here that I, myself, struggled. I, for one, learned no one sorts the way I
do. Sees organizational patterns the way I do, or tackled the project in the
way that I saw fit. However, officially,
from a practical standpoint, I’m a moderate.
I sometimes am prone towards saving…but it is almost always for
sentimental reasons amidst which rocks, pelts, and old tables had none. I’m all about throwing away clutter and
getting rid of things that have outlived their purpose. But
I also see purpose and value where sometimes others don’t…
And yet, most of my coworkers weren’t so moderate. Indeed, some of them were quite harsh. It became a shouting match of “well I have
never once used this! Therefore it has
no value!” What about the fact some one
else uses it every week? And “I don’t
know what this is for! I will never use
this! Therefore no one ever will!”
To me, the logic seemed flawed. It frustrated me to no end. Sometimes personally as the “junk” they had
decided was long since useless, was something I used. Something I saw with a purpose.
I struggled.
Admittedly some with my coworkers to which this entire story has
progressed, but mostly with what went beyond them.
Far beyond whether someone thought the paint should stay or
go or someone else thought that something that took up too much space should
just be pitched. Far beyond such things was the innate question of value.
It bothered me that day in a way in which it has continued
to bother me since…
Who gets to decide value?
Who gets to assign worth?
And purpose? And intention?
And since when did that get to be me?
Because, see, it isn’t so much about capture the flag poles
or the aquatic life ice covers. These
lack lasting bearing…
And the problem isn’t held in such things or with even with “things”. It isn’t even held in the frustrations I had
with my coworkers those days (although this does eventually come into play in a
quite opposite way). The problem is held
with me…
The problems which comes not from what gets thrown away…but who.
To whom do I give value to and whom do I “throw away”,
ignore, dismiss?
I’d like to think I’m immune. Somehow better than the average in seeking
out the best in people regardless of whom they are and are not…
But I’m not. I’m not
immune and I’m DEFINITELY not better. In
fact, I may be among the worst.
I can be terribly judgmental. Terribly assuming. I am often swayed by the worst in people and
willingly mentally give and take away purpose as if it were my job. And I’m as head strong as any of my coworkers
(I am a Kasper after all!) which means…good luck changing my mind once it’s
been set!
On one scale, my coworkers have probably all, at one point,
been subject to my decisions of value.
Perhaps not innately as people but their thoughts, their opinions, their
knowledge… [Confessing: definitely on sorting day...] I know I’ve made myself the judge in some of
those circumstances. And I know I've allowed those judgments to impact what I determined their value to be.
And embarrassedly in circumstances quite a bit bigger. When value and purpose hits the “Real World”…
which people or people groups have I deemed disposable? Perhaps, and most likely, not deliberately with
my words or a crescendo, but with my actions?
Whom have I decided has not the worth of others? Whom have I deemed to be “junk” in this world
which God looks past my labels and sees with a purpose? His purpose?
I can see value and purpose and potential in arbitrary
objects. Yet my actions sometimes hold
people high in the air proclaiming “I don’t know what this person is good for
and so no one ever will! Toss ‘em!” All
the while God is looking at me saying “now hold on just a cotton pickin’ second! Who are YOU to decide who to throw away? Who makes you the one to overhaul the world
and decide who should stay and who should go?”
Me, another throw away person God has saved from a trash
pile for His purposes.
There is a quote by, of all people, Audrey Hepburn that I
love. She wrote “People, even more than
things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never
throw out anyone.” In these simple words,
the grace of the Father is articulated in an especially poignant way. They scream “Anika, you have been reclaimed
and redeemed. God is in the continual
process of restoring you. If your value
can be revived, who are you to throw away the value of another? Be part of the process of redemption…”
Redeeming from the clutter the people I and the rest of the
world throw away…
“It makes me wonder, contemplate, and become intrigued by
the ideas of “value” and “worth”. What
things have little worth or value in the wrong hands but are of infinite value
in the hand of those who can hold, because they know, the true worth? And I think the end of the this query almost always
ends not with pennies or things or even ideas or causes…but with people…”
*I had quite a different end in mind when I first started
writing. Same topic, different angle.
Different means of communicating.
Things which convict as I write have a way of eventually being written mostly
just for me as it completes. For this
reason it rests somewhat unfinished and open-ended. If this post was for you as it was for me (in
which my head still spins with things unwritten), I imagine you’ll need to
write the end for yourself anyway…
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