The Puzzle

Jun 11th 2008
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This week, I’ve been wrapping up my time with Communities in Schools with a summer program for a handful of my students. We’re doing a race (ala The Amazing Race) where we’ve visited three colleges, completed a lot of team challenges, and enjoyed time at the water park and the Sedgwick County Zoo. The whole event has gone fairly well, but it was a difficult experience yesterday that I want to share here.

We had just finished eating our lunch, bringing a better-than-expected morning to a close. It was time to move on to the next activity and in order to do so, one member of each team had to complete a puzzle. Two girls ripped open their puzzle boxes and began arranging the pieces. One had immediate success, while the other struggled.

As time went by, a male on the struggling team began to criticize his teammate, stating how he could do the puzzle so much better and faster. He continued despite rebuff from the leaders until the girl breaks down and cries, wanting to give up on the puzzle altogether.

At this point, something remarkable happened. All of us, except Mr. Negative, began to encourage the downtrodden girl. Soon the other team finished, and they were able to race off and get a lead. But, they didn’t. Instead, the girl who had completed her puzzle joined the struggling team to help her finish. Pretty soon all of us had jumped in and the puzzle was soon complete

The young man eventually apologized, recognizing that his actions had been wrong, but he didn’t necessarily do it in the way that I would consider appropriate. So, the rest of the day I found myself wanting to exert some kind of judgement on this kid. He had been wrong, and I wanted him to know it. His teammate was cold and distant to him, until at one point I had to pull them aside and talk through the issue so they could move on and finish the day with a smile.

There are three ideas that have stuck with me from this experience:

1. Encouragement Matters: A little discouragement was able to take the life out of a great day. It damaged a relationship. Words have incredible power, which we sometimes forget until we’re face to face with their effects. I like how the Apostle Paul writes about speaking only what is good for building others up. Or as my momma said, “If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all.”

2. Compassion Beat Competition: Everyone wants to win and the team that finished first had every right to take advantage of their superior puzzle skills and take a big lead. But, this fifteen-year-old girl realized something that many of us can forget: Competition isn’t important if it compromises relationship. By sacrificing a win for themselves, they were able to create a greater win of strengthening a new friendship and feeling better than the trophy would make them feel.

3. Forgiveness is a Must: We had experienced a great act of compassion and yet for an hour afterwards the mood was putrid. What had happened? Forgiveness had not occurred. The girl who had been offended was refusing to talk to the young man, who had little ability to keep his mouth shut. But, once we were able to talk briefly about it and move beyond it something amazing happened. The two finished the day laughing and enjoying themselves.

While none of these ideas are novel, they are things that I too often forget. I love when experiences like these crystallize a concept and make it tangible. It is a little glimpse of what is possible which hopefully we can bring about each day in all we do.

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