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SPIDEY SENSE
by Bob Sitze

Sometimes I wonder whether a lot of folks are totally clueless about simple living. Like it’s a new idea for time-strapped minds or an ideal that’s so small that it doesn’t get noticed among the furor of competing synapses. But then I think of a trademarked super-hero whose sensitivities about impending or occurring evil are so strong that his whole body actually tingles.

Here’s why I’m hopeful. I think that for the most part, you’re aware of your deepest feelings. Call it the mind of Christ, conscience, reciprocal altruism, or gemeinschaftsgefuehl-it turns out the same way. You know when things aren’t fair, aren’t right. You know when what you’re doing hurts other folks, when you’re faking it, when you’re about to give up on a futile way of living. When you’re called to transcend selfishness. In other words, I’m pretty sure that, when it comes to living simply, you have a “spidey sense.”

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Great Committees
by Dan Hotchkiss

In an old cartoon by Charles Addams, a man and his son walk through a park and look at statues, each of which depicts a little clutch of people. “There are no great men, my boy,” the father says, “only great committees” (The New Yorker, May 5, 1975).

We laugh. A great committee—how absurd! For quite a while, the venerable committee has been out of style. Books on how to jazz up congregations scorn the committee as a time-wasting fossil of the pre-postmodern era.

And yet, some committees accomplish a great deal—managing existing programs, generating and evaluating new ideas, and making it possible for their parent body to make decisions more wisely. What makes it possible for a committee to be good, or even great?

Continue reading “Great Committees”