Have you ever accidently dropped something? Last week, I dropped something…several times. This something, a box, was resting atop one of the wheeled tables I was moving to another classroom, and every time I picked up too much speed, the box would slip off and land on the floor. After carefully watching the two objects interact, I realized that box was simply too intent on keeping it’s current speed, and so was falling behind until it ran out of table to fall behind on.

 

As it turned out, once I slowed down the box no longer fell off; with the proper care and the right speed, the two objects were able to live harmoniously in the same space, and even arrive to their shared destination.

 

In the Church, I’ve seen the same thing happen. A person or group wants so badly to arrive to a particular place, that they forget about the others with them that aren’t going the same speed—it doesn’t mean they’re unwilling to go along for the ride, just that they want to get there a bit slower. Perhaps if we spent more time watching how we interacted, people wouldn’t fall off the table. 

 

Robert A. Perales