Leader's Insight: Downsize Me! - Christianity Today

From my journal:Operation Downsizing has been underway in our home for about a month now, and we are on plan. The garage gleams; book shelves are purged (more than I’d wished, less than my wife, Gail, wishes); and breakfast can now be served on the basement floor. Unneeded furniture is gone; tools unused for years are repaired, and old computer peripherals are given away. The town dump is a better place because of us. The to-do list is getting shorter.

We’ve wanted to do all this for years, but some other priority always got in the way. There was always a compelling reason to postpone Operation Downsizing (we call it OD) and do something else. But early this summer we reached a tipping point in life, and re-sizing and re-ordering our living space became a passion.

In the office phase of OD, I spent several hours going through files that have not seen the light of day for twenty-five years. There are letters and memos that reflect life and leadership in my first years of pastoral ministry. And they offer several observations:

First, how much time and energy I gave to things that really weren’t very important and had no long term value. Second, how many people who were once champions for some effort flamed out after just a few years and disappeared. Conversely, how many times I misjudged someone, wrote them off, and then saw them gather strength and become saints. And, finally, how important it is to be faithful in the routine, day-after-day exercises of leadership. You don’t get much people-shaping done if you move every two years.

Perhaps the most embarrassing aspect of all these files is their evidence of my feverish sense of self-importance. Too much about me, too little about Jesus.

Result: Operation Downsizing is worming its way into my soul and its issues. Getting rid of books and old sports equipment was easier. My spiritual basement is a tougher place to work in.

I have Parker Palmer to thank for this: (There is an old Hasidic tale that tells of a pupil who asks the rebbe), “Why does Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts’? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?” The rebbe answers, “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks, and the words fall in.”

Summer reading (when not downsizing): A fourth or fifth re-read of Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus (Crossroad, 1993). “Living in a community with very wounded people,” Nouwen writes, “I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg.”

Better Off (HarperCollins, 2004): Eric Brende’s account of an attempt to rid his (and his wife’s) life of all its technological trappings. In other words, imagine life without Blackberrys, answering machines, and microwaves. Oh, the horror!

Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz (Nelson Books, 2003): I know everyone else has read this book by now, but I’m just getting to it. Just about the time I think the writing is lazy and hokey, Miller produces a slap-to-the-side-of-the-head insight. Like the day he and his friends decided to erect a confessional booth on a college campus and confess (to unbelievers!) the centuries-long sins of the Christian movement. That chapter was worth the price of the book. (Miller’s confession booth story appears in the current issue of Leadership, and will be featured soon in Leadership Weekly.)

Why does this story make me smile? It is said that when Cardinal Basil Hume was in his 80’s, he recalled a time in his childhood when his mother told him to keep his hand out of the cookie jar lest God see him and be harsh with him. But now, he imagined, if he should stand before God, the Lord just might say, “Basil, why didn’t you take two?”

In the spirit of Thoreau: I took to the Maine/New Hampshire woods and rivers in my kayak last week (not all time has been spent on downsizing, you understand). Three days by myself, not another person to talk to, just me, the loons, a few moose and endless birds (including two eagles). Thirty miles of paddling, discovering, erecting and dissembling camp each night. What was learned? That there is so much God has to say into the heart when there is enough silence and separation from the rage of modern life. All living things possess the fingerprints of God; all living things speak of his character; all living things conspire to make a holy temple dedicated to His praise. All living things do this except when they are hindered by pollution, exploitation, and carelessness.

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