I saw people sitting on benches.

Context
I was passing the Caddo Parish Courthouse on the way to the library today. There's a nice picture of it here at the website for Louisiana Film and Television (look for photo #25) that shows the benches out front. Today, as is usually the case, there were people sitting on the benches who didn't look like the people one normally sees inside the courthouse (lawyers, uniformed employees of the parish, etc.). Most of them didn't seem to be doing anything.

Commentary
A note for those of you who have never lived in Louisiana: a "parish" around here is like a "county" everywhere else in the United States. Because of recent tax law changes, when you order stuff on the phone you might have noticed that the operator will ask you what county you live in. I get a perverse kick out of saying, "I don't live in a county; I live in a parish." Sadly, I don't think they usually have a separate field for that in their form.

I remember that when I was a small child I used to frequently tell my mother I was bored. I also remember precisely when I stopped telling her that: it was when I learned to read. Members of my family will testify that subsequently there were many days when I accomplished little else besides devouring books, but at least I always had something to do! And it is still the case that I occupy some of my time with stuff like reading, watching TV, and surfing the Internet. I call these "input activities," because like #5, I'm just gathering input.

I don't spend nearly as much time on input as I did when I was kid, because now I'm expected to produce "output," like by bringing home a paycheck, distributing that money to other people, washing dishes, walking the dog, writing my blog, etc. I find I have a love/hate relationship with these obligations (even the blog-writing!). Sometimes I don't like anyone depending on me, because I really hate to disappoint people (or cats or dogs or birds) by not fulfilling every expectation. On the other hand, being counted on to perform a particular task, even a mundane one, makes me feel like an important part of God's plan. So I'm motivated to produce some output.

This led me to think about why the people sitting by the courthouse might not have anything to do. It's possible they didn't want to be doing anything, but assuming they were, in fact, bored, I wonder how that happened. If I start from the assumption that they are somewhat finanacially disadvantaged, it's possible that they didn't have the resources for a lot of "input activities," although the library has free books and computers right across the street. What worries me more is the idea that people might not have any "output activities" that they're expected to perform. Love/hate relationship aside, I would really hate it if no one depended on me for anything! How would I justify my existence?

Digging deeper, what would lead to someone not being expected to do anything? Well, maybe it starts from a scenario I remember from my own childhood. I was the youngest in my family by quite a bit, so I often felt like there was nothing special for me to do because my siblings had already taken all the available roles (athlete, brain, and yes, even troublemaker). What was left for me? Maybe the people sitting on benches feel like everything's already been done and there's nothing left for them.

Or could it be worse than that? Could it be that they were depended upon at one time and fell short, so everyone in their lives has decided not to expect anything at all? How must that feel, carrying both people's disappointment and their expectation of more disappointment? Helplessness is the feeling that we can't do anything. What about the feeling that no one want us to try? Pointlessness? Irrelevance?

No way! God does not work like that. When everyone else has written us off, God still believes in us. You know how much? He put His mark of protection on the very first murderer. The most revered of His patriarchs had a speech impediment. Peter denied his savior three times in a matter of hours, and he still got to be the founder of the Christian church!

God expects great output from the most downtrodden and disappointing people and you don't want to get in the way of what God expects. So how can we get behind it instead? How can we help people who don't seem to have anything to do find their true calling? Can we start by looking through God's eyes instead of our own?

Who did you see today?

I saw single-minded salmon

Context
I'm in Juneau, Alaska for vacation this week. Juneau is on the Gastineau Channel, where scads of salmon come after they've matured to swim up their home streams, spawn and die, so I've had quite a few chances to see the swimming upstream portion of this cycle. There are many obstacles, both manmade and natural, preventing the salmon from getting to their destination. These include pools where the water gets too shallow for the salmon to breathe when the tide goes out.

Commentary
My title up there is a misnomer because salmon, of course, are not single-minded. They have no minds at all. They have a biological imperative that compels them to swim upstream. As a human being though, my tendency is to anthropomorphize and say, "what are those salmon thinking?"

As I was watching the salmon making their way up a particular stream today, I thought I saw a couple saying to themselves, "aha! I've found the easy way to get up this stream and now I'll get there before everyone else and have a really successful spawn!" Actually, they were headed straight for one of those shallows I mentioned above, where several of their dead buddies had already created a feast for seagulls.

So this made me think about single-mindedness. Salmon have no choice in the matter, but we do. Do we get so focused on immediate goals that we fail to see the consequences of our actions? Do we look for the quick answer instead of considering the longer path that might have better rewards? Can we learn something from fish that have no minds at all?

What did you see today?