Sabbath 22: Doing Good Badly

Sabbath 22: Megan's post, Tripp's post

This week's chapter begins a new section, one entitled Wisdom. I'll start off by saying that, once again, I have problems with this week's chapter, and I'm not sure how the exercise and the chapter connect. However, I'm learning to trust Muller to a certain extent, in that his ideas in sequence work like the moves in a sermon, getting you to a point, and not always standing alone. Let me try to summarize this chapter:

Muller begins by telling a story of how he, in what he seems to describe as a fit of 70's-induced wide-eyed idealism, championed the idea of getting juvenile criminals and psychiatric patients set free to return to their homes. The idea was, he says, to fully engage the community in the raising of our children...they would be "free to be cared for by their families, back home where they belonged."

You know the end of the story, of course:
"eager to be useful, we just let them go. Now the nation is awash in lost children, some violent, many in pain. And now they are not first-time offenders, they are multiple felons. We, for our part, now rush to blame them for threatening the safety of our society, and we cannot build prisons fast enough to hold them."

He then goes on to other stories of not thinking through the possible implications of our attempts to be helpful--attempts that tried to help children in Africa that instead helped the warlords who enslaved them, or attempts at improving the food production of a region that seriously imbalanced a fragile equilibrium in the ecosystem.

His next move, given that we're on a Sabbath groove, is to say that if we/they had only taken some Sabbath time to think about the implications of their ideas, they would have done better. This is oversimplifying at best--we can't always see the results of what we intend ahead of time, even with the best planning.

He then moves on to say that the kind of love that raises healthy children requires time. Quantity time and quality time. The kind of time you have if you practice Sabbath.

This, I think, is his conclusion: "Doing good requires more than simply knowing what is wrong. Like God in the creation story, we need Sabbath time to step back, pause, and be quiet enough to recognize what is good."

* * * * *

Here's my fundamental problem with the chapter: I'm honestly sorry that Wayne feels guilty for the unforeseen consequences, and that his hindsight shows him a clearer picture. But I can't agree with him that if he would have just slowed down to think some more, he (and the State of California) would have made the right choice, children in Africa would not have starved... the logical conclusion to his exercise is to not do good at all, or else to do so in such a careful manner as makes no difference.

I do agree that there is wisdom in slow deliberation, and in taking the time to try our best to see ahead and consider the consequences.

I'm also going to re-frame his exercise, because I think he's aiming for intercessory prayer and trying to describe it in different words. I'll paraphrase: Think of a problem you struggle with. Now, imagine that problem as a seed, growing toward resolution in some invisible soil. Imagine, just as a seed knows how to grow, this problem may already know how to be resolved. How does this change your feeling about the problem?

Okay, that's interesting. But the focus of his exercise, I think, is in the wrong direction.

And here I'm going to say something that all of you might not agree with. I think that God answers intercessory prayer. There are some people who say that God will not act just because we ask. (another way of saying that is that I can't control God.) There are people who say that their prayers are "answered" so infrequently that they've decided God's not listening or that God's not there to listen, and the times they did seem to hear an answer were just coincidence.

Muller's suggestion seems to be: the problem knows how to solve itself. Leave it alone and let it time to grow. If you imagine that the problem can solve itself, (or, if I'm feeling snarky, pretend that the problem can solve itself), do you feel better?

Let me use one example of the things that I'm praying about right now: I'm planning a session of camp for the summer. Camp doesn't inherently know how to plan itself. Now, if I sit still and visualize a wonderful camp session, I feel better, at least while I'm visualizing (or daydreaming). That's internally focused--my feelings are happier. But if I ask God to (to use Muller's metaphor) grow the hearts of my campers, and prepare them to experience the transforming love of Christ Jesus, then that's externally focused. The first way says "let it be," and accepts that whatever happens will happen. The second, while still recognizing that the problem is bigger than my ability to control it, turns it over to God and asks for help.