Hoosac Mtn Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism via Foter.com - CC BY-ND
In the 1850s, builders of the rail line from Boston to the Hudson River faced a huge obstacle: Hoosac Mountain.
The cost was estimated at most, two million dollars. The experts decided the mountain was composed of soft rock and that tunnelling would be fairly easy. The experts were wrong. Digging through that mountain turned out to be a nightmare. 2 million tons of hard rock, 20 million dollars, 25 years. If the people involved had known the true nature of the challenges they faced, they would never have funded it.
Was the ignorance of the experts a hindrance or a blessing?
If they hadn’t misjudged so badly, Massachusetts wouldn’t have been able to ship goods to the developing west, freight costs would have remained prohibitive and the state would have been poorer. So, in ignorance, they failed forward -- made a bad plan, but succeeded in a totally unpredictable way.
Fear of failure can be pretty powerful. But history tells us to keep on -- keep on making decisions, whether or not we can guarantee the outcome, keep on blundering along, because no matter what decision we make, there will be unexpected consequences. Results we couldn’t have predicted. And even if some of them are bad, we will be challenged to create new solutions of which we couldn’t have dreamt.
Have you heard of the Hirschman principle? Ignorance is good in planning, because if decision makers knew the real costs and difficulties of projects, few ventures would ever get started.
The only way we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be.
I am full of that ignorance. I think of it as a side effect of the hopeful side of faith. That’s why I coach congregations and mentor and teach ministers.
Your Search Committee and Leadership Circle chose me as your fill in minister because I committed to doing some of that coaching. In my time here, I have shared some of that with your leaders, who as a result were not treading water until the return of your real minister. They have been working hard to plan new initiatives. Often, seeing the complex as simple can get us moving in new directions.
I don’t know what your church will look like in the future, but I continue to have faith that what you do now to respond to God’s call will have outcomes we can’t begin to imagine! So be hopeful, take a chance and ‘fail forward!’
Blessings,
Mòrar
