Tomato Juice

I am someone who is constantly trying to figure out what is coming around the bend. I am not a fan of surprises and the fact that I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow drives me nuts. I have a back-up plan for everything, and then another back-up for the back-up. The positive of that way of thinking is that I tend to stay calm when everything falls apart; the negative is that I am always waiting for the world to fail. The optimists of the world will tell me that I need to relax and just enjoy the ride while the pessimists will ask for my autograph and make me the poster child of the Failsafe Movement.

I find it funny that two people can look at the exact same situation and feel two completely different emotions. It is the age old “Glass is half empty, Glass is half full” scenario. My question has always been, “What happened to the other half?”

Did somebody drink it? Did it spill? What kind of liquid are we talking about? Would I want to finish what is in the glass or just give it to the dog? Is it a big glass or a small cup?

Do you see my dilemma?

Life’s beauty is in the details and when those details are over looked we are left with empty clichés that carry little weight. By arguing over whether or not the glass has a certain amount of liquid in it we completely ignore the commonalities of what is in the glass.

Let me explain this in simpler terms. If I look at a glass and see tomato juice there is a good chance that if you were to look at the same glass you would see tomato juice. We can now both agree that we are looking at tomato juice and that if we drink said juice we will be nourished with a healthy drink. If we were to sit there and argue over how much tomato juice was in the glass than we would never get to the good part…..the drinking of the liquid.

Let’s go a little further and take buildings in which people go to in order to worship God. They basically look the same and have the same set up inside. If I were to take a cross-section of these buildings I would find rows of places to sit, a large area upfront with some sort of wooden table, a cross of some sort, and musical instruments in various shapes and sizes. This place of worship is replicated all over the world and it comes in all shapes and sizes.

Now if we were to stand outside of these buildings and argue who has more “God” or “Jesus” than the other we would never get to the good part…..the nourishment that waits inside. Just like in the “glass is half empty/half full” scenario….the healthy part is not the glass but what has been poured into it.

We all look at this world through lenses that have been shaped by what our life’s experiences have been. The important thing to remember is that we are all still looking at the same world. Whether you are an optimist or pessimist, a Baptist or Lutheran, a Methodist or Catholic…..the issue is not whether our glasses are different but whether or not God has filled them with the nourishment of life.

Let us not argue over the trivial but come together with the substance.

Half Empty.

Half Full.

Who cares….as long as we can get something to drink.