…or, worse yet, for people who have plenty to offer but have been otherwise coerced.

byoo-rok-ruh-see : multiplication of, and concentration of power in, administrative bureaus or administrators.

Now that I have your attention, and probably your suspicion, maybe even a bit of your malice, I hope this will come together.

The thing about processes and procedures, rules and regulations, rights ways, and wrong ways, all the stuff that institutions are made of, is that it creates a divide between talk and action. In most cases a pretty large divide. In a Christian organization this is further compounded by every individual’s calling to bear fruit, or burn (Matthew 7:19). What happens when a person’s “fruit” is relegated to words spoken in a board room? Well, then those words become a pretty important part of that person’s self-worth. So then what happens if those words turn out to have been misguided? Let’s call those bad ideas (and we all have them) “rotten apples”. So the possibility has come to light that maybe those were some rotten apples. Another apple has been presented that looks pretty nice, but as is always the case in the realm of ideas, perception can sometimes substitute for reality. So now this tormented soul, the bureaucrat, is battling to prove that their apples are not rotten. If they are rotten, then their very self worth is in jeopardy. So they battle for the merit of their idea in the face of any evidence, they will battle on. In the end, they will probably win. Bureaucracy can only endure as long as the titles and positions it offers maintain respect and submission. So we ingest the rotten apples, and the sweet ripe apples of a different idea are left to rot. Who will ever really notice anyway? By the time we get sick we will be talking oranges and probably have ingested any number of things that could have caused the problem. The illusion full of fallacies continues in all its glory.

God is pretty interested in fruit, as the verse above and many others attest to. Do you think He misses the sweet fruit lying on the ground? What about the tree that produced that fruit? He sees you! In the end, that’s what really matters. As for the guy that keeps producing rotten apples, it’s a terrible fact that they are probably quite capable of producing some pretty amazing peaches, or grapefruit. Unfortunately for him, and his institution, the topic of that day, in that boardroom, was apples. Gosh, how boring if there were only apples!

“In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.” Goethe

For people perception is 9/10ths of reality, but for God, people’s perceptions probably don’t account for 1/10th of it.

Sorry if I upset you.
<>< ICA