"Choosing to Use Creative Thinking"

Religion in Daily Life C By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min. Rector, All Saints' Church 9601 Frankford Ave. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19114 Written 5 March 2002

A farmer had a flock of geese he wanted to sell to a poultry market in the city. He did not have a truck to transport them the five miles to the market. He would have to herd them down the road on foot. Unfortunately, the only road to town was covered with small sharp rocks that would cut the geese's feet. The geese would have to walk that road, but they'd get to the market limping with bloody feet. The farmer decided to put shoes on the geese. First, he poured warm melted road tar into one of the pens. He shooed the geese into that pen. Their feet became coated with tar. The farmer then lifted each goose into an adjoining pen that had clear, dry sand on the ground. As the geese waddled around, the warm tar picked up a thick layer of sand. With these "road shoes," the geese could walk safely to town. The farmer practiced creative thinking.

Similar creative thinking was used in Russia when the city of St. Petersburg was being laid out. A large boulder blocked the path of a planned avenue. Movers submitted expensive bids to lift the boulder away. A peasant offered to get rid of the boulder for much less money. He got the job. He dug a deep hole next to the boulder and let it drop into the hole. He then covered it with dirt.

Creative thinking was the path Jesus of Nazareth took. Contrast the thinking of Jesus' disciples with Jesus' approach. When the disciples saw a blind man, they seemed anxious to fix the blame. "Rabbi," they asked, "who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?" (John 9:2, The Message). Our questions always reveal our assumptions-those ideas we take for granted. Behind the disciples' question was the assumption that where there was suffering, there must be sin. Both Job and Rabbi Harold Kushner have wrestled with the question of bad things happening to good people.

Jesus was more concerned with fixing the problem than in fixing blame. He said to his disciples, "You're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here" (John 9:4, The Message). What a striking contrast between negative and positive religion! Negative religion starts by concentrating on sin and fixing blame on people. Positive, progressive religion sees opportunities everywhere to show God's grace, his friendship and acceptance, to all human beings. "For the grace of God has dawned upon the world with healing for all mankind" (Titus 2:11, NEB).