I Am Not Good Enough To Be Anything Else

There are a lot of reasons to be Christian, but there is only one reason that I have heard from another person that I deeply resonate with. She said, “I am Christian because I am not good enough to be anything else.”

I am too emotional to be a stoic. I am not very disciplined in my logic to be a philosopher. I am too jittery to be a Zen Buddhist. I am too theistic to be an atheist. I am too angry at injustice to be a hippy. I am too ignorant to be a social justice warrior. I am too privigleged to be voice from the margins but not famous enough to be a leading voice from the center. I am too unsure of myself to be a life coach and too hesitate to be a leader. I suffer from imposter syndrome most days and on the other days my head is larger than a balloon in a parade. I am too clean to be a shepherd and too dirty to be a priest. I am too happy to be a pessimist but not Pollyanna enough for optimism. I like to be a realist but find that I am not practical enough but still not intellectual enough to be thought leader. I don’t spell well and have all sorts of bouts and fits with grammar.

I have learned about many different religions and am just not good enough to make the grade.

I am not good enough to be anything else and so I give thanks for Jesus Christ who gives mercy and grace in more abundant ways than I could imagine. Christianity is the last best hope that I have to belong with others, discover God and receive Good News.

Maybe this is where Christian preachers fail. We have been preaching a gospel of striving, achieving and success and few people are good enough for that news. The Good News is that Christianity is full of sinners, losers, failures. Or as I like to call them, people like me.

If you are good enough to be something else, good on you. If you are not, then you might be the best Christian.

#UMCGC and the Good, Fast, Cheap Triangle

The Good, Fast, Cheap triangle looks like this:

You can only pick 2

Everyone at the General Conference (GC) desires it to be good, fast and cheap. The fact of the matter is, that is not possible not just for the GC but for all of life. So within the proceedings of the GC, there are camps that are established based upon some underlying values. While we can debate the values, I would submit that these three values (good, fast, cheap) are just as good as any to understand what seemed to happen today at the first day of the General Conference. The reality is that with these three values, you can only have up to two at any one time. 

At the GC, there are those who value this to be cheap and fast. The reality is that we would have a conference of low quality because decisions would be driven by speed and low cost. It would be a race to the bottom, like when we thought the Ford Pinto was a good idea.

There are those who desire the GC to be fast and good, but that is expensive. And that is an attractive way to operate. This is why the fastest cars on the market are also among the most expensive. 

There are those who desire the GC to be cheap and good and that really takes time to create. It is like rebuilding a car that you bought for $300 from the junkyard. You can rebuild it and make it high quality, but it will take a lot of time.

Of the parings, it seems that it is the third group (the one that takes the most time) is the least desirable paring among the bulk of GC delegates. So that leaves the expensive option or the less quality option camps to come to an agreement. 

As I heard the debate today, it dawned upon me that this tension between these three values may be just as valid of a reason to the gridlock we have found ourselves in. We want all three but can only have two. The question that I think about as I compose this reflection at 11pm is what two does God value? 

Perfect Belittles Good

When I was in math class during high school and college, I had two different experiences. In high school I was given credit on a math test only for the correct solutions that I turned in. While in college I was given credit for the steps that I took to arrive at an answer even if that answer was incorrect. While high school only accepted "perfect", college embraced "good". I may not have arrived at the "perfect" answer, but my teacher could see the steps that I took and affirm the positive steps while at the same time pointing out where I had strayed. In high school math class, the pursuit of perfect belittled the good.

imperfect and good.

The perfect belittling the good is something that you can see when an adult tries something for the first time. For instance, many adults do not like to dance in public in part because they are not perfect at dancing. We feel that since we "cannot dance" (read, we are not perfect dancers) we do not dance. And since we don't dance we remain crappy dancers. We do not see practice as making good progress that is to be affirmed. We just sit on our hands and marvel at those who seem to be able to dance "flawlessly". The pursuit of perfect belittles good.

You also see the pursuit of perfect belittling good when it comes to public policy. One party might propose a solution to a situation, fully aware that the proposal will not perfectly solve the problem. Critics point out the imperfections in the proposed solution and deem it as garbage since it is not going to address the problem 100%. Since the solution is not perfect it is belittled. 

Good does not have to be the enemy of perfection. Just because something may not be perfect, it still can be good. Just because humans are not perfect, humans are still good.