If Trash Cans Could Speak
- by Aaron
-
in By Aaron
The other day I was driving home from one of my jobs (I can’t remember which one, but that is not the point). As I drove down the streets adjacent to my house the sky was becoming darker as the clouds for the coming storm started overshadowing everything. It was then that I noticed the green garbage cans in front of everyone’s houses.
Our trash pickup is scheduled on an every other week rotation; one week it is normal trash and recycle, the next week it is normal trash and green waste. This particular morning I had put out my regular waste and recycle waste, but as a drove home I noticed that all my neighbors had put out their regular waste and their green waste. I thought, “Look at that dummy, he put out the wrong can.” A little farther down the street I saw another and thought, “another dummy with the wrong can.” As more and more people had their green cans out I began to realize that either everyone else was the dummy, or I was.
Sadly, as seems too often the case, the dummy was me (or “I” or however that punctuation and grammar stuff works).
Many times we need that subtle reminder that as much as we think we are right, we can many times be completely wrong. We can get so upset at others that we tend to lose our way and begin to wrongly assume things about them that are not necessarily true. We can judge motives based upon how we interpret them and not how the person intended them, we can get angry over a perceived slight that was never there, and we can think every else is the dummy with the wrong trash can on curb when the reality is that it is us who are sub-par in our memory. Philippians 2:3 reminds us Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Sometimes we all need a reminder of our fallibility because we can get so self-righteous that we don’t even notice how we might be the only people who got the trashcan wrong. Its is a humble thing to realize who the real dummy is, it’s me, its us, but those are also the people Jesus uses because we realize we don’t have all the answers, only He does.
Welcome to the poor in spirit club.
Our trash pickup is scheduled on an every other week rotation; one week it is normal trash and recycle, the next week it is normal trash and green waste. This particular morning I had put out my regular waste and recycle waste, but as a drove home I noticed that all my neighbors had put out their regular waste and their green waste. I thought, “Look at that dummy, he put out the wrong can.” A little farther down the street I saw another and thought, “another dummy with the wrong can.” As more and more people had their green cans out I began to realize that either everyone else was the dummy, or I was.
Sadly, as seems too often the case, the dummy was me (or “I” or however that punctuation and grammar stuff works).
Many times we need that subtle reminder that as much as we think we are right, we can many times be completely wrong. We can get so upset at others that we tend to lose our way and begin to wrongly assume things about them that are not necessarily true. We can judge motives based upon how we interpret them and not how the person intended them, we can get angry over a perceived slight that was never there, and we can think every else is the dummy with the wrong trash can on curb when the reality is that it is us who are sub-par in our memory. Philippians 2:3 reminds us Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Sometimes we all need a reminder of our fallibility because we can get so self-righteous that we don’t even notice how we might be the only people who got the trashcan wrong. Its is a humble thing to realize who the real dummy is, it’s me, its us, but those are also the people Jesus uses because we realize we don’t have all the answers, only He does.
Welcome to the poor in spirit club.
