Organizations

I got this rumination on organizations from Ed Chinn today:

"Part of what makes organizations unnatural is that they assume (and plan for) perpetuity. No living thing lives forever on the earth. That’s why the American Cancer Society is something of a perversion…the last thing it wants is a cure for cancer. Yet, some organizations – Salvation Army, Red Cross, Hospice – just seem to roll on from age to age. But, they all seem to have an enduring and straight-ahead quality. They don’t depend on manipulation or deception. They provide solid services and seem to exist for those services. It’s like God gives them long life because of the depth of their care.

"Regarding churches, I don’t think local churches are necessarily supposed to endure permanently."

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I'm such a posessive individual. I think we all are. When I have something I don't want to lose it, I want it to be mine. Think of all the crazy things that people collect. They sit there behind glass, never to be touched.

Maybe it's why people own birds. We had a bird once and it always seemed unnatural to me. The most beautiful thing about birds is that they can fly. Watching a bird hover on the breeze is awe-inspiring. They just play in the wind, jump off buildings and swoop. Wouldn't it be cool to swoop? But there the bird sits, on a perch in a cage. It flaps it's wings once in a while but it's in protest, not in flight. It just never seemed right to me. I guess we do that with the Holy Spirit too. Or at least we wish we could.