Rush to Judgment

I remember, in Argentina, our church normally held a "business" meeting the last Sunday of the month. Usually, we planned to have it at a member’s house.

One month, I wasn't sure who was to host our monthly meeting. The Sunday before we were to meet, we were in a worship service. At the end of the service, I was making the announcements.

I reminded people that we were to meet the following Sunday. I asked if we had decided where we were to meet. (I knew we needed to decide.)

A teammate of mine raised his hand and said that we would decide next Sunday. I thought that sounded strange. Perhaps he didn't understand, so I said, "But we're holding our meeting next Sunday."

He replied, "I know, and we'll decide next Sunday."

Now, I was irritated. His attitude put me off. All afternoon, I thought about calling him and saying, "Look buster, just who do you think you are. Do you want to run things?"

Fortunately, before I called him, he called me to explain what happened. He said, "I was concerned you might have thought what happened this morning sounded weird, so I wanted to explain."

Come to find out, it had been agreed upon the previous month that we would meet in the house of a poorer couple, because the wife had offered their home. The husband had been so embarrassed—since they did not have enough chairs to seat everyone--he didn't want to host the meeting.

My teammate was simply trying to stall for time so we could solve the problem behind the scenes without embarrassing the couple. His explanation made perfect sense.

It was a noble thing my teammate did. I had thought he was being so “horsy”, but he was simply trying to protect someone else.

Things aren't always what they seem. That's why we need to be careful to rush to judgment.

This is one application of what Jesus said in Matt. 7:1-2:

1 "Don't judge others, or you will be judged. 2 You will be judged in the same way that you judge others, and the amount you give to others will be given to you….”

Herding Books

How did I spend my vacation? Well, among other things, doing what Larry McMurtry calls herding books.

Our son, Timothy, was quarantined for a couple of days due to strep. I recently purchased the software for organizing one’s possessions called DELICIOUS LIBRARY. Don’t let the name fool you. It organizes CDs, DVDs, closets—and books.

Anyway, my OC kicked in. Rather than totally relaxing, I spent a lot of time reorganizing my library and cataloguing books. 

I know I am Obsessive/ Compulsive because my adrenaline was running so fast, I woke up some mornings at 4:30 or 5. One night, I even dreamed of ways of categorizing the books in my library. I’m not kidding.

That dream did help me overcome a software quirk of DELICIOUS LIBRARY. You cannot force your books to go in the order you want, if it is contrary to the built in guidelines. I wanted my presidential books shelved in the order of their place in history: Washington, first, then John Adams… It wasn’t going to happen with DL. Because of my dream, I figured out that I could list each president in NUMERICAL order, followed by the name. For example: 1. Washington, 2. Adams...

Voila! Problem solved.

I hope this solution makes the Google Alerts feature, a bunch of DL people read it, and DL pays me a consultation fee.

Wait, that’s my next dream.

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. I wrote the following at 5:30 PM, yesterday, during the Cowboy-Eagles game, “There is still a lot of talk that there may be an NFL players stoppage in 2011. Funny, I think the Cowboys got a year’s head start. Their players stopped playing a long time ago.”

Boy, was I funny.

I’ve got to take back my words. Sure, the Eagles were playing with more reserves than the Cowboys. Still, I saw the highlights. Winning in the last minute in Philly shows guts. The Cowboys have played hard under Jason Garrett. They may not be as talented as other teams, but I look for Garrett to return next year (if there is a next year!) and for the Cowboys to make the playoffs.

2. The latest KIPLINGER LETTER is on Generation Y. A lot of good data there; maybe the two most interesting items are these:

            (1) Only 24% read the newspapers.

            (2) 25% send more than 50 text messages a day.

3. I wanted to see TRUE GRIT during my vacation. That did not work out. I hear it is good, though.

4. My family and I did see TUCK EVERLASTING. Profound movie. The story takes your imagination and helps you contemplate whether or not life would be good—lived forever on this earth. Hmmm. Maybe God knows what he is doing.

5. I loved watching TCU defeat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. My understanding is the ratings were through the roof. And what good press TCU got! Between baseball and football, TCU is hot.