Problem Solving

For the past 100 years, the 90,000 residents of Santa Fe, New Mexico, have participated in a unique annual ritual: the burning of Zozobra. With a budget of just over one million dollars, the city constructs a towering 50-foot papier-mâché effigy, which is set ablaze as the crowd chants, “Burn him!” The purpose is to symbolically purge the community of its collective anxieties.

As described by the New York Times, Zozobra is imagined as a beast from the nearby mountains, lured into town under the guise of a celebration. Dressed in formal attire, Zozobra “thrusts the town into darkness and takes away ‘the hopes and dreams of Santa Fe’s children.’” The townspeople attempt to subdue him, but it’s only when the Fire Spirit-summoned by the unity of the citizens-arrives that Zozobra is ultimately defeated by fire.

The ritual’s goal is to literally incinerate the worries and troubles of Santa Fe’s residents. Before the burning, people stuff the effigy with written notes of their anxieties, medical bills, report cards, parking tickets, and even loved ones’ ashes. The act of burning these items serves as a powerful symbol of letting go.

Fire, both historically and in this ritual, represents destruction and renewal. It “eliminates dead vegetation and enriches soil, promoting new growth; it rejuvenates via destruction.” By channeling fire through ritual, people hope to gain control over the cycle of death and rebirth, using flames as a metaphorical reset button. The burning of Zozobra unites the community in optimism, offering a chance to vanquish the undesirable and begin anew each year.

The kids at Summit Elementary School in Butler, Pennsylvania, are looking out for their peers five miles away at Broad Street Elementary. Broad Street is in a food desert, where it's difficult to get fresh produce.

Two years ago, Summit Elementary school students, led by teacher Angela Eyth, began growing fruit, vegetables, and herbs on campus, with the bounty going to families at Broad Street Elementary. Angela said, “It's amazing when you start with a small idea and it can grow. No pun intended.”

The Summit Elementary students are not only learning how fruits and vegetables grow, but they are also gaining math skills through measuring and estimating and coming up with solutions to problems. Recently, they figured out a way to keep out bugs that eat kale.

The school received a grant to build a stand at Broad Street Elementary, where they will put out the corn, squash, carrots, beans, and other items they grow. This is just the beginning—future plans include planting sunflowers, Christmas trees, and a pollinator garden. Angela said, "The kids are in charge of everything. They're so proud of what we're doing here."

At the end of her freshman year at the University of Tampa, Kira Rumfola packed her bags and headed to the airport with her favorite roommate: a colorful betta fish named Theo. Kira, 19, was headed home to Long Island for the summer and was happy to be bringing home the little fish that she had bonded with. She figured there would be no problem taking Theo onboard the plane in a small portable fish carrier. She said, “I’d done it before over the holidays with another airline, so I filled the container with water and put Theo in it.”

But there was a problem. While she was checking in, a customer service agent Ismael Lazo noticed the fish and explained to Kira that the airline’s pet policy allowed only small dogs and cats onboard in carriers. No other pets are permitted on planes.

Kira said, “All of my roommates had already gone home for the summer and I had nobody to leave Theo with. “I was really sad and wondered what I was going to do. He’s my pet.”

Lazo said he understood Rumfola’s concern for Theo. “I have two dogs—I wouldn’t want to abandon them somewhere. How about if I take your fish home to live with me and my fiancée until you come back for college in the fall? You can text me over the summer to see how he’s doing whenever you like.”

Kira’s face lit up, Lazo said. Right away, he felt good about his unusual offer. Kira promised she would check in often over the summer to see how Theo was faring in his temporary home.

As soon as she arrived home in New York, she texted Lazo: “Hi Ismael, it’s the girl from the airport with the fish! I was just wondering how he is doing.” Lazo quickly responded: “Hey! We are heading to the store to buy him a bigger tank.”

Lazo said that he didn’t feel sad when Kira returned to classes in late August and it was time to reunite her with Theo. “To be honest, I was worried about something happening to him on our watch. So, I was happy for Kira to have him back.”

When Rumfola went to Lazo’s apartment to pick up the fish, she gave him and his fiancée a store gift card and some candy as a gesture of thanks.

In his book, Heath Adamson describes the process of correctly diagnosing a problem:

Horst Schulze, the former COO of Ritz-Carlton Hotels, told the story of one manager's discovery of a problem that seemed to confuse almost everyone. Numerous complaints came in to management because room service was repeatedly delayed. The eggs were cold, the toast was hard, and guests were inconvenienced. Mr. Schulze described a typical response as being something along the lines of scolding the supervisor for being incompetent. As one could expect, the discouraged supervisor would then gather their staff around and do the same to them. Blame would cascade down from one person to the next. But this isn't what happened at the Ritz-Carlton.

The Ritz-Carlton manager assembled the team, and they studied the problem. The kitchen staff prepared the food on time. The staff quickly took the trays to the elevator for delivery. They discovered that the issue had nothing to do with the kitchen staff but rather the service elevators were not always available. This delayed delivery. Then, they continued to study the situation by using a stopwatch to time the elevators for an entire morning.

The reason the food was delayed and arriving to the rooms cold had nothing to do with irresponsible kitchen staff or faulty elevators. A decision by management to reduce the number of bedsheets on each floor was causing the housekeepers to use the elevators more frequently, thus tying them up more. Trying to save money by reducing the number of bedsheets purchased, stored, and washed actually created more challenges in the long run and resulted in angry customers and poor room service. Misdiagnosing a problem never results in solving it.

Before there was the Internet and Google, the only way to find answers to a pressing question was to visit the local library and ask the all-knowing librarian. A few years ago, the staff at the New York Public Library discovered a box of cards containing questions posed to the librarian by members of the public. The telephone “Ask A Librarian” service was set up in 1967 and operates to this day. And surprisingly, despite people having information at their fingertips these days, the New York Public Library receives roughly 30,000 calls per year.

Help line manager Rosa Caballero-Li said, “People have been reaching out to librarians for as long as there have been libraries. Often time people do not have access to the technology at home, and I think some just want somebody to talk to.”

Among the questions that were discovered:

What does it mean when you dream you’re being chased by an elephant?

Why do 18th Century English paintings have so many squirrels in them?

If a poisonous snake bites itself, will it die?

Somebody in 1962 was looking for “Charles Darwin's book. Oranges & peaches." The librarian politely directed the person to On the Origin of Species.

One person just wanted to know how to put up wallpaper. “I have the paper; I have the paste. What do I do next? Does the paste go on the wall or the paper? I've tried both and it doesn't seem to work.”

"There are no stupid questions," Caballero-Li told NPR. "Everything is a teachable moment. We don't embarrass people; we try to answer any questions they have with honesty and we try to refer them to appropriate resources that they might find useful."

Possible Preaching Angles:

The Bible is a resource of God’s answers to our deep questions. God never forbids a sincere question but invites them (Jer. 33:3, Jam. 1:5) because they are teachable moments and lead us closer to him. Important Bible questions include those about: God’s presence (Ps. 10:1, Ps. 13:1), forgiveness (Matt 18:21), purity (Ps. 119:9), Christ’s return (Matt 24:3), guidance (Acts 1:24), and his attention to our needs (Matt. 8:25).

There are the toddlers who color with permanent marker all over the wall or decide a sibling needs a haircut. Then, there is Leo Belnap, a two-year-old who knows how to work a paper shredder.

One Sunday, his parents, Ben and Jackee Belnap, noticed an important envelope containing $1,060 was mysteriously missing. For the past year, the die-hard University of Utah football fans had been saving money to pay back Ben's parents for season tickets.

They started tearing the house apart searching for the cash. "I'm digging through the trash," Ben Belnap said, "and Jackee hollers, 'I found it.'" It was in the shredder. In a thousand tiny pieces. Immediately they knew Leo was the culprit. He had been helping her shred junk mail and documents. Apparently, he thought he was being helpful this time, too. First, his mother cried. Then, she laughed. She said, "As devastated and as sick as we were this was one of those moments where you just have to laugh."

Hope may not be lost for the couple. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing offers a solution. In fact, the bureau has an entire "Mutilated Currency Division," which is devoted to "redeeming" burned, rodent-chewed, or deteriorated money--a free service to the public. It handles approximately 30,000 claims per year, redeeming more than $30 million in mutilated cash. Ben Belnap contacted the Treasury Department and was told to send the remains of the money to Washington in Ziploc baggies.

In the meantime, Leo will not be using the shredder anymore. The silver lining: "Well, this will make a great wedding story one day."

Possible Preaching Angles: 1) Failure; Redemption; Renewal – No matter how we damage our lives, the Lord can make “all things new” when we come to him (2 Corinthians 5:17); 2) Mothers; Mother’s Day; Forgiveness; Patience – A wise mother will patiently endure and tenderly forgive the wrongs done by her children with “the teaching of kindness … on her tongue” (Proverbs 32:26).

Some silly people are terrified of spiders. If you're one of them, then a recent story from the New York Times is for you. Apparently, a Seattle man tried to kill a spider in his laundry room with a homemade blow torch—"a very dangerous can of spray paint set aflame by a lighter." Big mistake. The result? He burned his house down.

By the time the fire department put out the blaze that ensued, it had caused $40,000 in damages to the house and $20,000 to property inside. It is unclear if the spider survived." This "solution" was definitely worse than the problem.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Same for many of our lives—the fixes we come up with are often foolish, ill-advised, or downright dangerous. We feel lonely, so we turn to the "company" of pornography or an abusive relationship to "solve" the issue. We feel insignificant, so we turn for affirmation on social media, leading to the original problem spiraling out of control. What we need is a solution bigger than the problems we face, and ultimately, there's only one—Jesus.

The best definition I've heard of a problem is, "A problem is something I can do something about!"

It is much easier to fix blame than to fix problems.

Let me give you a principle to remember: Definition is a prerequisite for resolution.

In other words, if you can define a problem, you can usually deal with the problem. Vague anxiety without definition of its nature and source will simply wipe you out. It's important to define the problem before you do anything else.

We shouldn't use God to solve our problems. We should see our problems as an opportunity to find God.

Any problem that can be solved with money isn't a problem. It's an expense.

It is so much easier to fix blame than to fix problems.

One of the tests of leadership is to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.