It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. | Theodore Roosevelt
In the sermon Sunday, I ended by talking about how our dreams of community can destroy our ability to have actual church community. The ideal makes it impossible to be satisfied with anything less.
I think that this is a greater problem for us than it has been for previous generations, mainly because our lives are so easy. This means that we can often have exactly what we want and we have the time to critique it. I read a fascinating article this week that made the argument that our ability to control nature makes us more frustrated with the results:
A group’s attitude toward the world may be very different if its livelihood is destroyed by naturally occurring ecological changes rather than by human decisions.
As we learned to have more control over the world around us, those things that still remain ‘wild’ seem more powerful to us. Often our response to this is to become even more controlling. Rather than learning how to deal with those parts of life that have power over us, we want them fixed. One of the tools of repair over the last ten years has been deconstruction.
The term deconstruction means a lot of different things to people. The way that I have seen it exercised is: if you can find a flaw in a person, a system, or an institution, it devalues it and gives justification for dismissing it. So people are canceled, systems are abandoned, and institutions defunded. The idea is that getting rid of these is going to provide the freedom to pursue good. It puts control back into the hands of the individual.
Of course, individual freedom does not always lead to good. The Bible’s description of pervasive evil is: everyone did what was right in his own eyes. What end you are deconstructing towards matters. It is also important to recognize that God did not make us primarily to deconstruct. It is necessary, at times, to remove something in order to build in its place. Reconstruction always takes a lot more time than tear down.
I mention this because I think that we have been conditioned to be critics more than creators. Many of the articles and books that I read spend 80-90% of the time talking about why we need change, with a short chapter at the end offering some ideas of what this may look like (often a much weaker version of what they intend to replace). We resonate with the critiques, which makes us much more willing to latch on to the replacement, even if we will just be complaining about how these have failed us five to ten years down the road. We need to learn how to see the good along with the flaws, because getting rid of the problems does not mean that we have achieved good. Deconstructing and constructing are two different processes.
This matters, not only because it is better to live in a constructed world than a deconstructed one, but also because the process of creating shapes us. I taught a class on creativity a few weeks ago and used the Roosevelt quote at the top as part of it, pointing to 4 ways that stepping into the arena will help them to mature as Christians:
We learn about ourselves
As long as you never risk or act, you can believe false things about yourself. The person who has never been in a fight can believe that they can beat anyone up, but the person who has been pinched in the face has a better sense of their own limitations. I am not advocating for fighting, but for putting ourselves into the uncomfortable place of having to face our own limitations.
We also learn good things about ourselves. Unless we are willing to step out into a place of making and risking, we will not know what we can do. Far too many people are intimidated by their own self-criticism to try. Making and doing provides us with a sense of purpose that builds confidence and helps to fight against anxiety and depression.
We learn to see others
When you start doing, you begin to see all of the others who are working around you. Some of them are immensely talented and others aren’t, but have this amazing ability to keep showing up and doing (which is an inspiration to me). The moment that you choose to pick up the trowel, it makes the doers visible.
When we sit back and critique, we often focus on the final product. We dismiss the work and the people behind the work that produces it. It disconnects us from the sources. Being in the arena helps us to see all of the good work being done, and that it is done by people, who also have struggles and limitations. All parts of culture get humanized.
We see how much is outside of our control
When you are not trying to build, everything seems simple. The solutions to all of the problems in the world are debatable ideas. The moment that you actually try to create, you confront a sea of challenges. These challenges remind us that we are not a few inventions from having everything in line. There is a world of variables and we can , at best, consider some of them.
This teaches us to become comfortable with the mysterious. Maybe not comfortable, but certainly aware of it. When you don’t expect everything to go as planned, then you are less affected by challenges and don’t feel the need to find who is at fault. There is a great peace connected to acknowledging that life is complex.
We learn to rely on God
Of course, it is also a bit scary to admit, because it means that there are forces bigger than us. We will face problems that we do not have answers to. The only place to go with this is to the one who is greater than all creation. When God tells us to cast all of our anxieties, this is what He is directing us to do: recognize that you don’t have all of the answers and come to the one who does. Rest in Him – then go out and create with reckless abandon.
He is with us every step of the way so we need not fear mistakes or failure – His grace is more. While we should be self-aware to critique and take stock, this should be a small percentage of how we spend our time. The more you invest in the cultural mandate – be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it – the better this world will be to live in. Both for yourself and for others.