PICK IT UP
Theology is like dog poop.
I remember walking in my neighborhood few years ago with my kids when we first got our puppy.
I am picking up poop with my cute earth-toned poop bags.
And there it is.
A huge pile of poop from another dog, literally 3 feet away from a dog station that has bags and a trash can.
My kids were in shock lol.
They could sense my frustration, and we all grumbled.
Why would they not just use the bag that is available?
Literally right next to the poop.
Why would they not take care of their responsibility?
I told them maybe they were in a hurry?
Maybe they didn’t have bags (oh wait, there are some right there)
Was there an emergency? Lol
Surely there was a good reason this person decided to not be responsible.
I told my kids that actually there wasn’t.
Some people just don’t care.
They don’t think, they aren’t aware.
They are just living their lives, assuming somebody will take care of their shit.
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.” Hanlon’s Razor
I reached down and picked it up, and told the kids we are the people that take care of others’ incompetence and whatever their reasons they may have for not contributing.
The only reward is that the poop is now gone, and the responsibility has now been taken care of. And we will still be gracious because one day incompetence may find us without a bag or awareness.
But we can still think in this moment it’s ridiculous.
Theology is the conversation about poop.
It is the conversation about who put the dog poop station there, why people are not using it, what the person was thinking when they decided to leave it, and why all the people who passed it earlier left it.
These conversations are disguised as progress.
They fill pews and create followers but they don’t solve problems.
It reveals that systematic responsibility is still facilitated by an anonymous 20 percent of individuals. (Pareto Principle)
I have realized as a pastor and as a business owner most people love these conversations.
These conversations are the meetings we attend.
These conversations are our prayers.
These conversations keep us busy discussing responsibility.
Just pick it up.
Simple answers are our least favorite, because most of us have to deal with hierarchy and ego in our daily functions.
Simple answers live outside your beliefs and your ego, and simultaneously offend our egos.
My confidence, which I am proudly known for, is not misplaced in theology or theory.
I have been acting in confidence in heavy doses for the last 10 years.
Want to know what I keep finding?
Every time I pick up somebody else’s shit, I bypass systems and hierarchy all together.
Most human stress exists because we live within reach of a solution that a system was supposed to solve.
We live with a heightened awareness of problems, creating dependence on distant solutions.
What is sold back to us is hope.
Hope is what our society is addicted to.
The gap of expectation and reality is stress.
Action is the only way to close that gap.
It’s the stress of god, the loop I keep referring to. The expectation and reality of Western theology is that nobody wants to pick up the poop.
Maybe prayer will magically pick up the poop lol.
It’s a content creator trying to find favor with the algorithm,
when all they need is a client.
Just ask a local business owner how you can help.
Like physically walk into a business in the middle of the day, and say hi.
But again, simple answers insult us.
It’s been my dirty secret I am open about, because I have had zero competition from people during the day having the conversations I am willing to have.
They are busy making reels.
You can skip the system, the hierarchy, and the conversation all together.
You just have to pick up the solution, have the conversation, moving from theory to reality.
Close the gap with your existence.
That same week more poop was back,
which was the final lesson for my kids.
Some people are just ass holes.