Wednesday, January 2, 2002
Wednesday, January 2, 2002
But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to
become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the
will of man, but of God.
One of the hot words in society today is empowerment. Companies are empowering
their workers. In business terms empowerment usually means giving workers the
freedom to choose how they go about their work. It means giving them the tools as well
as the responsibility and then getting out of their way. Did you know that empowerment
is what the Gospel is all about? Listen to these words from the prologue to John's
Gospel: "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to
become children of God."
(John 1.12-13
NRSV)
Did you know that there was once a sit-down strike in space? It's true. This strike
occurred on the Skylab 4 flight in December 1973. Ground control in Houston was
trying to make this final space mission as profitable as possible. They scheduled the
astronauts' days so tightly that they were even forbidden to participate in their favorite
pastime--watching the sun and the earth. Houston daily "sent up about six feet of
instructions to the astronauts' teleprinter." The civilian physicist on board begged
ground control to give the astronauts a break. He suggested they send a bare
framework of a schedule, together with a shopping list of things for them to do, and
then let the guys on board figure out the best way of doing them. When Houston
decided against letting the astronauts design their own calendar of activities, the crew
protested with a day long sit-down strike. The first one ever in space.
Dear God, thank you for empowering me to share your love. Amen.
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