Plates

I've noticed lately that my everyday dinner plates are looking kind of rough: several are chipped, and the paint is looking worn and faded.  As I've started considering an upgrade, I remembered a study I'd heard about relating the size of your plate to the amount you eat.  This is a link to a fascinating article on the topic.

The bottom line is that the same amount of food looks smaller when served on a larger plate.  Especially telling is that even when people were specifically tasked with serving the same amount into different sized dishes, they consistently over-served when using the larger dishes, showing how strong and unconscious this bias is.  Combined with the fact that American-made dinner plates have grown some 23 percent since the 1950s, it's little wonder that we're all getting heavier!  I'll definitely be looking for some smaller plates when the time comes.

All this musing about plates naturally turned my mind to offering plates and from there to church pledge campaigns, since many churches (my own included!) have their pledge in-gatherings in the Fall.  So what bearing might this plate-size business have on our perceptions of generosity when we are giving to God through our local church?

At first thought, it might seem that we all would recognize how abundantly God has blessed us and thus see ourselves as having "plates" filled to overflowing with God's generous provisions.  From that sense of abundance we would then readily and joyfully give a heaping helping to the church, confident we'd still be left with more than enough for ourselves.  The truth, however, is that  the rich communities in which so many of us live comprise a vast enormous plate on which our individual blessings often seem tiny and small....

Seeing our portion on such an unrealistically large plate makes it harder to give.  The total of what we have feels small on the "big plate" of the lifestyles around us: a mere pea on a platter.  It makes us less inclined to give generously, because we feel poor by comparison even in our extraordinary wealth!

The answer then is to get yourself a new "plate" on which serve up your blessings.  Like the more-than adequate servings that fit on a smaller dinner plate, we need to evaluate the abundance of God's provision against a more appropriate backdrop.  We need to see the circumstances of our lives on a smaller plate, in order to more readily and easily share what's on that plate with others.

Rather than comparing ourselves to the rich and famous as shown in news and entertainment and to observations of our neighbors, instead we need to consider the whole range of the human condition - around the world and throughout time.  And instead of focusing only on the "stuff" we have, we also need to remember all the intangibles - family, friends, church community, health, faith, well-being, the beauty of creation, the wonder that God made you and loves you!  All the money in the world won't fill a plate the way these things can.

With the confidence of knowing our plate is full, our generosity is more easily released.  We just need to know how to look at things.  What aspects of your life do you need to look at differently in order to recognize how abundantly God has provided for you?  Can you share more of that abundance with your church?

The King-Sized Bed Effect

My husband and I recently took a lovely vacation on Ocracoke Island, NC.  We rented a tiny but adorable little house, and its one and only bed happens to be a king-sized bed.  Hubby and I have spent the last 24 years sleeping in a queen-sized bed, so I was looking forward to the spacious treat of a really big bed, even in a tiny house.

What I discovered though, was that that large bed felt rather TOO large.  We naturally spread farther apart when we laid down, and I found that when I reached my hand out to tuck it under hubby's torso as I often do, he was no longer in easy reach!  It really was more like sleeping alone than with someone, what with all that real estate between us and the wider sheets and blankets, too.

Thinking about our experience with the big bed got me to thinking about other things that come with so much space.  First and foremost, we don't have to put up with each other!  Blanket hogging, tossing and turning, snoring, coughing, one reading in bed when the other is trying to sleep - these are all things hubby and I have learned to tolerate (and even love and appreciate) in one another.  But we've only learned to do so by staying close; as the bed gets wider, the amount of tolerance needed decreases.

Similarly with living in large houses: how does one learn to tolerate the irritating habits of those with whom they live, if they are so far apart that they don't HAVE to learn to tolerate?  According to US Census data, the average square footage of single family homes in the northeastern US increased from about 1,600 to about 2,600 square feet since the 1970s.  That's a 1,000 square foot increase, or about two-thirds larger!  Ironically, average household size has been decreasing during that time!

What we found in the big bed is surely also true of the big house: when more space is available, people will naturally spread apart.  The farther apart we are, the less we use our "tolerance-muscles."  Our character gets weak and flabby, and we lose both tolerance AND intimacy with others.

Is it any wonder, then, that Christianity in the US seems to be waning in many places?  We who want our personal space and have limited tolerance for others being "too close" would naturally also find it difficult to embrace a Lord who lives WITHIN us, as close as our very breath.  Or to live closely in a tight knit Christian community as the body of Christ - not just occupying the same room on a Sunday morning, but knit together into a single community.

Galatians 4:1-7

I say it's time to down-size!  Where in your relationships do you have "too much space"?  Is it between you and your spouse?  Or perhaps a sibling?  Maybe it's with a friend or someone in your church fellowship.  Find some small way to begin drawing that person closer.

Or maybe...  maybe... it's between you and God that there is too much space.  God may seem a world away, but God is always as close as your breath - just a prayer away from your heart.  Pray now for God to grant you the tolerance to let Him live closer to your heart.