What Role The Blue Shirt?
I didn't realize a blue shirt could mean so much. This is the status symbol employees of the fast food chain receive when they are promoted and are now distinct from the red shirts around them. For the son of a friend of mine who hasn't found particular validation as a student or athlete, the blue shirt was especially gratifying. His dad says the accompanying raise didn't matter nearly as much as the blue shirt others could see.
For the adolescent venturing out into the working world much like where he will find himself for the next few decades, the harbinger of the blue shirt is altogether good. Too much of a good thing, or too much worth assigned to a good thing, is not. With much more work behind us than my friend's commendable son, how many of us are still looking for the blue shirt, or the next blue shirt, to designate us for separate praise from our working peers? Is the blue shirt, or its more expensive equivalent, an accompanying RESULT of work done heartily as unto the Lord? Or, has the blue shirt become a goal or even a fixation in itself?
What happens when there literally IS no blue shirt, or no particular designation of our profession or our status in it? M*A*S*H examined that with the altogether admirable, altogether affable, chaplain Father Mulcahy. For six seasons, he has been the man everyone can relate to and no one dares disparage, even while they disparage everything and everyone else. For six seasons, he has overlooked everyone else's faults in an exemplary recognition that the convictions to which he is called may not represent a universal standard or a universal point of spiritual maturity. In this week's scene burned into my mind, Father Mulcahy is without his collar and his customary default to grace. He is most like his fellow man, which is to say he is uncollared altogether in a communal shower. Not only is he without the identifying markers of his profession and spiritual status, he is forced to listen to the soldier in the next shower stall bragged that he has received three promotions in the last six months. All the while, Father Mulcahy hasn't been promoted or officially recognized for his humble service. He undertakes a risky mission against his superior's orders. In the end, he has to apologize to both his superior officer and his Superior Officer.
Appropriately, Mother Teresa recognizes the drain of distracting comparisons on the job. Her In The Heart of the World cautions, "Christ came to be the Father's compassion. Do your best and trust that others do their best. And be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." Our comparisons, it seems, embitter a dismissive attitude toward what we are able to do well, if no one else notices and commends it. If we do the task for its own sake, grateful that we can, as Tim Keller puts it in Every Good Endeavor, serve the Lord by serving the work, God's imperishable commendation stands in for the human tendency to ignore or forget.
Secondarily, gratitude for the work we are able to do is the only lasting protection against the condescending thoughts we hold within making their way into our facial expressions conversation, and social media presence. If we turn our petty grievances and comparisons over to the Lord and trust that HIS affirmation and reward are what we are made for, then the Trinity can be the only hazmat team to effectively rid us of our toxic attitudes. To prod us toward this difficult confession of our need for help within, God places us at work in a fallen world and surrounds us with people who are more likely to reflect our faults back to us than to remind us of the righteousness of Christ in our work. Seen as a lousy trade for the commendation we think we deserve, constructive feedback can crank up the intensity of the complaining spirit. Seen as coaching superintended by a good God for OUR good, even critiques can be welcomed as badges in His service, or the blue shirt of one destined for Heavenly perfection.
For the adolescent venturing out into the working world much like where he will find himself for the next few decades, the harbinger of the blue shirt is altogether good. Too much of a good thing, or too much worth assigned to a good thing, is not. With much more work behind us than my friend's commendable son, how many of us are still looking for the blue shirt, or the next blue shirt, to designate us for separate praise from our working peers? Is the blue shirt, or its more expensive equivalent, an accompanying RESULT of work done heartily as unto the Lord? Or, has the blue shirt become a goal or even a fixation in itself?
What happens when there literally IS no blue shirt, or no particular designation of our profession or our status in it? M*A*S*H examined that with the altogether admirable, altogether affable, chaplain Father Mulcahy. For six seasons, he has been the man everyone can relate to and no one dares disparage, even while they disparage everything and everyone else. For six seasons, he has overlooked everyone else's faults in an exemplary recognition that the convictions to which he is called may not represent a universal standard or a universal point of spiritual maturity. In this week's scene burned into my mind, Father Mulcahy is without his collar and his customary default to grace. He is most like his fellow man, which is to say he is uncollared altogether in a communal shower. Not only is he without the identifying markers of his profession and spiritual status, he is forced to listen to the soldier in the next shower stall bragged that he has received three promotions in the last six months. All the while, Father Mulcahy hasn't been promoted or officially recognized for his humble service. He undertakes a risky mission against his superior's orders. In the end, he has to apologize to both his superior officer and his Superior Officer.
Appropriately, Mother Teresa recognizes the drain of distracting comparisons on the job. Her In The Heart of the World cautions, "Christ came to be the Father's compassion. Do your best and trust that others do their best. And be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." Our comparisons, it seems, embitter a dismissive attitude toward what we are able to do well, if no one else notices and commends it. If we do the task for its own sake, grateful that we can, as Tim Keller puts it in Every Good Endeavor, serve the Lord by serving the work, God's imperishable commendation stands in for the human tendency to ignore or forget.
Secondarily, gratitude for the work we are able to do is the only lasting protection against the condescending thoughts we hold within making their way into our facial expressions conversation, and social media presence. If we turn our petty grievances and comparisons over to the Lord and trust that HIS affirmation and reward are what we are made for, then the Trinity can be the only hazmat team to effectively rid us of our toxic attitudes. To prod us toward this difficult confession of our need for help within, God places us at work in a fallen world and surrounds us with people who are more likely to reflect our faults back to us than to remind us of the righteousness of Christ in our work. Seen as a lousy trade for the commendation we think we deserve, constructive feedback can crank up the intensity of the complaining spirit. Seen as coaching superintended by a good God for OUR good, even critiques can be welcomed as badges in His service, or the blue shirt of one destined for Heavenly perfection.
Love this:
ReplyDelete"Do your best and trust that others do their best. And be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." Our comparisons, it seems, embitter a dismissive attitude toward what we are able to do well, if no one else notices and commends it. If we do the task for its own sake, grateful that we can, as Tim Keller puts it in Every Good Endeavor, serve the Lord by serving the work, God's imperishable commendation stands in for the human tendency to ignore or forget.
Secondarily, gratitude for the work we are able to do is the only lasting protection against the condescending thoughts we hold within making their way into our facial expressions conversation, and social media presence. If we turn our petty grievances and comparisons over to the Lord and trust that HIS affirmation and reward are what we are made for, then the Trinity can be the only hazmat team to effectively rid us of our toxic attitudes."