Stirring the Pot

I like to “stir the pot”. It gives me great enjoyment. If I could get someone to pay me to “stir the pot”, I would have my dream job. I am not talking about standing over a hot stove stirring a pot, unless it is stirring a pot of chocolate oatmeal cookies, I like to do that also. I mean I like to challenge the way people think about things. I like to challenge stereotypes and conventional wisdom. I like to call people on inconsistencies in their arguments. I enjoy raising my fist in defiance; even with my degree in Science (thanks Five Iron Frenzy). It is very immature and annoying, but if I had to make a list of the top ten things I can do with excellence, stirring the pot would be on that list.

The most recent attempt was while I was taking some graduate course work in Business through a pretty big Christian university. I learned that Webster’s Dictionary is not an acceptable source, while anything published by any grad student anywhere is an acceptable source. So I took it as a challenge to add non-traditional and maybe a little edgy, but acceptable, sources to every paper I had to write. It was so much fun!

At one point I had picked up a book by David Crowder and Mike Hogan called Everybody Wants to go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die : Or the Eschatology of Bluegrass. I had already used Crowder’s solo book, Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi earlier in the year. I could imagine some stuffy old Business School professor sitting in his office surrounded by piles of books and papers reading a quote by David and giving out a guffaw. “What is this? Who is this ‘David Crowder’ fellow and what does he have to do with business anyway? What? It is an acceptable source, properly annotated and formatted per APA? Well, I don’t like it one little bit! Not one bit I tell you! Kids these days with their Rock and Roll music and their computing devices!” I could not wait to use this second book, for no other reason than the awesomeness of the title.

Please don’t think I don’t like either of these books, they are both awesome. And please don’t think I am making fun of David Crowder or his band of merry men, I love those guys. The music they put together played an integral part in our adoption, but that is another story for another time.

So I picked up Everybody to find some random quote that I could fit in to a 15 page research paper on Creating Vision. I wanted to challenge the establishment one last time. This was going to be good! I started reading and soon found myself unable to see through the tears. It turns out Everybody is about life, death, and mourning. Crowder and Hogan had written it about their lives after the death of a close friend. My foolishness had boomeranged back on me and hit me right in the eye (which was why I was really crying, there was a proverbial boomerang sticking out of my eye). I had taken a wonderful piece of transparency and tried to use it for my silly game.

I abandoned the idea, finished up the paper without any reference to David and Mike, and started thinking. Why do I have to stir every pot I come across? What effect has being the pot stirrer had on my life? Certainly I have had way more stress in my life from it. I have definitely damaged some relationships. I can think of only a dozen occasions where positive change has been created by challenging the “system”. That makes an estimated 5% return on investment, which means 95% of the time I was just causing trouble for no good purpose. What a waste of time and energy.

So now I guess I need to work a little harder at “living peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:8) since in this case it really is up to me. There are still pots that need to be stirred, and I will still be willing to be that guy if needed, but I will have to make sure it is needed, and maybe I will gently use a clean spoon instead of a dirty electric mixer on high. Then maybe someday, someone will make an offer to be the Official Pot Stirrer for their organization, proving dreams can come true.