Chips
This is a guy’s name. He’s a real guy. “Chips off the old block?” I don’t know the derivation. But Chips has power over me.
He gets to tell me how I can think and how I cannot. He has the power to cost me and my friends a lot of money. And money rules, in case you didn’t know it.
Last year, in a public meeting, I complained that a certain Church process was demeaning and humiliating. Chips immediately stood up and said, “Oh, that may have been true years ago, but now it’s a very friendly process. I guarantee it!”
So my friends and I entered this process. Chips was pleased.
Five months later Chips got back to us. “Sorry for the delay,” he said. Then he called in one of my best friends and said that if we pursued our line of thinking, he would personally guarantee that we would get nothing out of the process. But if we changed our way of thinking, then he would be very receptive.
So we changed our way of thinking, even though we knew it was wrong, and Chips then said that he had a solution to our new issue. But his solution didn’t help, because it didn’t address the true problem (the way of thinking that Chips wouldn’t allow us to express.)
Although the boss of our organization says that transparency is a strong value, when we met with Chips and his gang, we were twice asked to leave the room, so that presumably, the gang could discuss us transparently.
Then the friendly process gave us almost nothing of what we had asked. And the final report of Chips gang is that we are deficient in many areas even though we excel in those areas.
“Now it’s a very friendly process,” said Chips. “I guarantee it!”
Chips, I’m having Darke Thoughts about you. Perhaps Amaziah can help me.
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Oh, the tangled webs cast by metaphor. Who to blame? Sounds diocesan to me…
Amaziah? I am not familiar with him. All I can find is not terribly flattering. One source says the lesson learned through Amaziah is ‘Whenever we puff ourselves up because of earthly accomplishments, a spiritual fall is sure to follow.’
Who’s puffy in this scenario?
Amaziah was the priest in Bethel, the King’s sancutaury, in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He was the king’s spokesperson who told the prophet Amos to stop prophesying and go home to Judah. He was pretty puffy, if you ask me.
Chips is the puffy one in scenario #1? What downfall do you foresee?
Downfall? Just another form of injustice. If we complain too loudly we lose some of the crumbs tossed our way. Otherwise, I just vent on my blog that (to my knowledge) no powers that be are monitoring. It’s the chicken’s way out, but I console myself that it’s not my call to jeopardize the crumbs. That’s up to the board of my organization, not me.