Out of the Crowd

A Wrinkle in Time was one of the first books I just couldn’t put down. I’m excited to see what the new Disney movie does with it, but it already laid a foundation for me for writing Out of The Crowd.
If you ever feel lost in a crowd, then you understand what Meg was feeling in the climax of A Wrinkle in Time, Meg struggles to find life as a person out of the crowd. The crowd is a planet called Camazotz. The lines are marvelous. On this strange planet, she struggles to both live out her calling as an individual and as a person in relationship to her brother. Here are some of my favorite lines.

The houses in the outskirts were all exactly alike, small square boxes painted gray. Each had a small rectangular plot of lawn in front, with a straight line of dull-looking flowers edging the path to the door. Meg had a feeling that if she could count the flowers, there would be exactly the same number for each house. In front of all the houses, children were playing. Some were skipping rope, some were bouncing balls. Meg felt vaguely that something was wrong with their play… This was so. As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers.

The brain of the town, the central consciousness of the planet, was in the CENTRAL Central Intelligence Building, and the brain, devoid of personality, was called IT. And IT monitored all the planet for any distinctiveness among the people. Meg resisted the uniformity of Camazotz. Later in the book, Meg faced IT to rescue her brother from the control of the over-sized brain who spoke to her through her brother. She decided to confront IT. For encouragement, she recited The Declaration of Independence. Continue reading “A Wrinkle in Time: A Lesson for Church and Country”

I learned a lot about leadership from coaching my children’s sport’s teams. Recognize these groups?

soccer younger I’ll give you a hint, they gather regularly in streets, yards, and fields across the world. They can organize themselves or be in a community structured league. This crowd is a frenzied pair of five year old children’s soccer teams (to use the U.S. term for the game).
Perhaps you are familiar with beginners playing soccer and their tendency to swarm around the ball, chasing it around the field, merging into an active, passionate, emotional herd. If not, I hope you can imagine it for those herds show many of the characteristics that groups including families, congregations, and all forms of crowds can exhibit.
Here is another image. These two groups aren’t crowds at all. These are older, more experienced, more mature players who have a better understanding of the game, how it is played, and their personal roles on their teams. soccer mature

If you look at the two diagrams, you can see the difference between the five year olds in their herd and the mature players in their teams. The most obvious difference between the two is spacing. The more mature players understand that space between them is important. Space between players in soccer is as important as space between musical notes in a song. If there is no space between notes in music, there is no distinguishable rhythm, tempo, or song, only a long blurry noise. In the younger, less mature groups, there is a lot of rampant activity, a lot of bumping, and kicking, but little soccer actually happens because they have not yet learned the importance of roles and spacing required in order to function as a team. So, too, is it in your life. If you are going to live out your particular calling, your particular self, your particular identity, you need emotional, intellectual, and social space between your self and others. Without healthy spacing and clear boundaries distinguishing you from others, your music, your song, your life, your role will be smothered, absorbed, blended into the greater group, the crowd. In the fused team, everyone is chasing the ball, there are no roles, and likely the team with one superior athlete will win every game. In the mature team, the roles are clear, they are quick but don’t hurry, and stick to their plan.

Besides spacing, another difference is in the fused team, everyone is chasing the ball, there are no roles, and likely the team with one superior athlete will win every game while in the mature team, the roles are clear, they are quick but don’t hurry, and stick to their plan. Continue reading “Leadership in an Anxious Age”