Daily Lesson for January 21, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 11 verses 1 through 9:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” 8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

Now here's something to consider.

Is it just a coincidence that this story in Genesis is found in chapter 11 -- the same chapter one files from in bankruptcy court when reorganization is necessary?

Okay, I know it probably is just a coincidence.  Nevertheless, the lessons of Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and Chapter 11 of Genesis are the same: the recognition that we as humans have a capacity to overextend ourselves, and that a little time for reorganizing is sometimes necessary.

We think of what happens to the people at Babel as a great curse -- a cursed mark like those who file for bankruptcy. But what happens at Babel is actually a blessing insofar as it saves the people from their own hubris and overreach. Their confusion, usually a curse, turns out to be a blessing, and their wandering a gift from God.

At some point in life we all have to file Chapter 11. What we intended to build didn't really get off the ground; or if it did get off the ground, it got just high enough for everyone to see before anyone realized it wouldn't hold. How humiliating.

But sometimes humility is just what we need.

"What's the gift in it?" my mentor and friend Ted Dotts used to ask.  The gift is the ability to start over again.  Confused? Yes. Cast to the four winds? Indeed.

But no longer consumed with making a name for ourselves, and no longer under the impression that a night tower can be built in the skies without a very firm foundation in the earth.

There is a gift in that.  There is a gift to be found in Chapter 11.  There is a gift in Babel.