Herding Cats

Jerusalem Street

If you could see what my workspace used to look like, you would probably say that it was a disaster waiting to happen.

While it may not have looked that bad to me, anyone with an eye for spotting organizational risk would have put their money on the possibility that something would go wrong.  And they would have been correct.

I spent many days consumed in the frustration of rebuilding and reorganizing what was lost to the disarray that results from working without a plan.

So, what did I do about it?

I learned over the years that it is extremely dangerous to wait for the disaster before addressing the situation.  The thing about obstacles is they turn up when you have no time to deal with them.

Anticipate and Avoid.

That is the strategy I now try to follow.

What it means is that I am always thinking of what might go wrong at the worst possible moment.  I am not always correct, and it doesn't guarantee that I will be prepared for everything, but it gives me something I need in these situations - patience.

It is hard to be focused on the steps needed to fix a problem if I am anxious and hurried.

But no one wants to take precious work time and use it organizing.

It is much better to develop a plan that has that organized approach built into it.  For me, that means gathering up all the work I am doing or have done for a particular client and putting those things in one place which I can clearly label.  It makes it easier to find things, and it provides me with one source to backup and support.  It is a method of management I learned from God.

Therefore say: Thus says the Lord GOD: I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.  - Ezekiel 11:17

I used to think of the land promised to God's people as a reward, a gift for being chosen as special.  But what if it is something all together different?  What if it is a way to get organized, a way to herd cats.

Now I know this is going to sound bad, but come on, we are not an obedient bunch of children, and I am including all of us Christians in the mix, since the promise was to the descendants of Abraham, and we fall into that family by adoption if by no other means.

We're all bad at organizing ourselves, so God has offered to do it for us.  But it isn't working, is it?

We miss the point if we think we deserve something here.

Rather than fight each other over ownership of the promised land, shouldn't we be looking to a greater purpose for coming together in one place as one people?

I find it a bit ironic that as a people we tend to organize ourselves into like groups when as individuals, we may be more open to discovering our heritage and celebrating the diversity in our lineage.  A good example of this is the popularity of Ancestry.com and its DNA analysis, which gives us a breakdown of the many genetic pools our ancestors swam in.

We are all one people, as much as that may upset some of us.  So, what's so special about any of us?

Last year, when we went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands and spent time in Jerusalem, I saw many different people living and working together.  They dressed and spoke differently, but they made their way through the crowded streets as a population, a people.  To me, it looked like God did what he said he was going to do, to gather them up from all parts of the world and put them there, together.

Maybe there is hope for us, if we can stop fearing each other and fighting with each other, and learn to eat from the same vendors, walk in the same streets, and dream the same dreams of love and peace.

Then again, we are just a bunch of cats, aren't we?