A dog walks into a bar. He's looking for work and figures a bartender is the kind of guy who keeps his pulse on the community. "You got any jobs?" he asks. The bartender says, "not around here, but the circus is town, maybe you should try over there." The dog looks at the bartender and asks, "Why would the circus need a typist?"

        OK, for those that didn't get that, here's a variation that makes the same point. A grasshopper walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Hey, we've got a drink named after you."  "Really," says the grasshopper, "why would you name a drink Fred?"

        Each of these stories illustrates our tendency to make assumptions about people. In the first story, the bar tender assumed that any dog that could talk ought to be in a circus. He didn't ask the dog what the dog wanted to do. He didn't try to get to know the dog, his dreams, his talents, his aspirations. He just assumed the dog wanted a job in show business probably because he thought a talking dog ought to be in show business.

        It's not a very big leap at all to describe congregations that invite lawyers to be on the by-laws committee-that's one that I got all the time-or accountants to be treasurer or skilled trades people to be on buildings and grounds, and so forth.  I've seen that go both way.  People who enjoy their occupation oftentimes enjoy using that same skill set to support the church because that's what they like to do. Yet, I've also seen people who want nothing to do with their occupation when they come to church. It takes all kinds of people to make up this world, and we need, well if not all of them, most of them to make it work well.

        Just out of curiosity, how many of you have taken some kind of test through your workplace, with a therapist or part of your education that assesses your personality or skills and purports to label you as particular type of person? My guess is that, for a lot of you that would be the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. How many have had that test? For those who haven't, it is based on personality archetypes developed by Carl Jung. That test measures your preferences on four scales, each consisting of opposite poles. That word preferences is important. Each of us is more naturally right-handed or left handed. That doesn't mean that we can't write to throw a ball with the other hand; it just means that we are much more comfortable doing so with one or another. Likewise, to say that you have a preference for one polar opposite does not mean that you act out of that preference all the time in all situations, but that you are more likely to do so most of the time and you will be more comfortable when you do.

        For example, the two archetypes for how we are oriented toward the world are labeled judging and perceiving. These terms, by the way, have special meanings unique to this test, so don't read too much into the labels. Here's a short description of each of these two types:

        "People who prefer to use their Judging process in the outer world tend to live in a planned, orderly way, wanting to regulate and control life.  They make decisions, come to closure, and move on. Their lifestyle is structured and organized, and they like to have things settled.  Sticking to a plan and schedule is very important to them, and they enjoy their ability to get things done."

        "People who prefer to use their Perceiving process in the outer world tend to live a flexible, spontaneous way, seeking to experience and understand life, rather than control it. Plans and decisions feel confining to them; they prefer to stay open to experience and last-minute options.  They enjoy and trust their resourcefulness and ability to adapt to the demands of a situation."

        Do these descriptions resonate with you? Did some other person-your partner or boss, maybe-come to mind? According to the people who designed this test, all of us fall someone on a scale with Judging at one end and Perceiving at the other. To repeat an important point, the place we fall on that scale represents our preference, our comfort level. One of the uses of this test is to help us expand our comfort level so that we can relate better to others who may be at different places on the scale.

        One of the hardest things we humans are challenged to do is to understand people who are different than we are. It is very human to think of ourselves as the norm, that people should be more like us. For example, on the scale I just described, I came out as more spontaneous and less orderly.  It would be natural for me to value spontaneity more highly and then to value more highly people with that attribute. That would be wrong, though. That's a natural impulse that I would need to be aware of and try to check. We're all guilty of this; I'm not pretending to be holier than thou. What happens is that an orderly person may experience someone who is messy or late or unprepared as lazy, indifferent, or careless. A more spontaneous person may experience a more orderly person as controlling, judgmental, or, to borrow a phrase from Freud, anal-retentive. This is not, as we covenant to do in the third principle of Unitarian Universalism, accepting of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.

        What Myers Briggs tells us, or more precisely, what Carl Jung teaches us, is that these kinds of lenses through which we see and experience the world are not value choices, it's who we are.  

        The preferences described in the Myers-Briggs test are not fixed like sexual orientation, for example. It doesn't mean that we are powerless over our ability to choose to act differently than we may prefer. As someone with a high tolerance for messiness, I can suck it up when I need to and clean for guests and company. People with different preferences still have to live together and work together.  What enlarging our world view and embracing our diversity allows us to do is to negotiate our differences from a plane of acceptance, rather than judgment. Its one thing to say, "You don't care about this house/family/office/congregation as much as I do." It's a very different thing to say, "You care about this differently than I do." When you reframe the issue, you reframe the response.

        Here's another example from a less well-known test called the Kirton Adaptation-Innovation Inventory. I took this test as part of my management development training when I was an Assistant General Counsel in Washington, D.C. The object was to help me to see how I and other people function differently in the workplace. This test puts you on a scale with adaptation at one end and innovation at the other. Here are some of the descriptors: Adaptors tend to take the problem as defined and generate novel, creative ideas for doing things better. Innovators tend to redefine problems, breaking previously perceived restraints, generating solutions aimed at doing things differently. Adaptors prefer well-established, structured situations and are best at incorporating new data or events into existing structures and are essential to on-going functions.  Innovators prefer ambiguous situations and use new data as opportunities to set up new structures or policies, accepting the greater attendant risk and are essential in times of change or crises.

        Well, there are a lot more comparisons and contrasts like that, but I think you get the idea.  The point that was driven home to me was how much any system-and I would say this applies to families and congregations as well as workplaces-needs people all along this scale. You need people who will hold your feet to the fire and remind you that there are policies and procedures in place, and you need people who will not let policies and procedures be the tail that wags the dog, people who will ask whether we need to re-evaluate how things are done in light of changing circumstances.

        Just like the Myers-Briggs test, it is natural for us to assume our place on the scale is the norm and that people should be like us.  Innovators tend to experience adaptors as predictable, wedded to the system, and stodgy.  Adaptors tend to experience innovators as impractical, unsound, and creating dissonance. These kinds of judgments about one another are divisive and destructive. The value to be honored here is not whether one is adaptive or innovative, but rather is that we are different and that we need those differences. We're all familiar with the phrase arrested development, as in, someone's emotional or social development was arrested or stopped at a certain age. A system-and that could be a family or an office or a congregation--full of adaptors will get arrested at some point that it can't grow beyond and will fall apart when confronted by change or crisis. A system full of innovators, though, will never stop long enough to have any stability. They will have a million brilliant ideas for growth and change, and they never will execute any of them.  It takes all kinds.

        Acceptance is not just tolerating people who are different than we are; it is embracing and valuing those differences. We often say you must walk a mile in another's shoes to really understand that person. There is some truth to that. It also is true that there is great spiritual growth and maturity in the recognition that we can never walk in another person's shoes because we aren't them. We haven't led their lives or had their experiences and we don't see the world the same way. One of the biggest mistakes we all make-and this is an example of the unintended consequences of good intentions-- is to project our experiences onto another person, as in, "because I went through a divorce or lost a parent at an early age or got fired from a job one time or had to put down a pet, I know what you are going through."  No I don't. What I can do is to share my experience and then let the other person decide for himself or herself if that resonates with them.

        We often describe the attributes I've been discussing here as gifts. Arguably they are. All of us have creativity, insight, perseverance, and compassion, for example. Yet, those attributes are not distributed equally among us. Some have much more of some than most, yet each of us have all of these attributes to some degree. When some attribute really stands out in a person, we might say he or she has a gift for creativity, for example. What about the not-so-obvious gifts.  What about the people who never will show up on any of these scales I've described?

        We use the term "gifted children" to refer to children at the high end of the intellectual spectrum and we use the term "special needs" to describe those at the other end.  We would be better served if we said that all children are gifted. As the great Unitarian educator, Sophia Fahs, said, paraphrasing the traditional Christmas hymn, every night a child is born is a holy night.

        When I was an older child, probably 11 or 12, and still attending church, I came to know Robbie, who then was about 5 or 6 years old. Robbie had downs-syndrome.  I remember having pity on his parents.  Still, when his parents went to get him from the nursery after church, Robbie always would run to them and give them a great big hug, and that would always bring a smile to his parent's faces.  I didn't understand then how a child that I perceived as such a burden to his parents could be such a source of joy.

        A few years later, I had an assignment for my high school newspaper to write about the special education program.  Part of what I did involved a visit to a school for severely mentally disabled children. I asked a teacher there what she could possibly do with these children all day, and I've never forgotten her answer.  "All we can do," she said, "is love them because all they can do is love us."  

        At that moment, I flashed back to Robbie. I saw his face, and I saw his parents hugging him and kissing him when they picked him up. And, I knew then why Robbie's parents were smiling. Children like Robbie (and adults like Robbie) teach us something about love, about how to love another person that can never be put on any scale and can never be tested or measured. The tests that I described earlier are useful tools in helping us to grow in our own self-awareness and in our acceptance of one another. Still, there is a limit to our ability to understand others, even ourselves.  These different lenses through which each of us sees are going to be the source of tension and conflict. That is part of the human condition, as is our ability to struggle with those differences and find common ground. What Robbie reminds me though, is that love transcends all of our differences. Love can open our eyes and ears and hearts to the worth and dignity of every human being. As Francis David, one of our great ancestors in the Unitarian tradition said, and you've heard this quote before, "We need not think alike to love alike."

        So, if ever a dog asks you for a job, ask the dog what he would like to do. And, if the dog's answer doesn't fit with your perception of what the dog ought to do, rather than challenging the dog's ambition for himself, change your perception of the dog. I humbly suggest that the story of the dog who wanted to be a typist contains great wisdom that may be applied to your relationships with your family, your co-workers, and even fellow members of this congregation, and maybe even your minister.

        Blessed Be.