3. Need!

This image was created by Lindsay Cox, a Salvationist cartoonist and Territorial archivist for the Australian Southern Territory. Those stand-up collars, bonnets and even that tambourine nestled between the two horrified lady salvos engender a culturally-felt nostalgia don’t they? – Especially for Salvationists. Paradoxically, wasn’t it, “need,” that originally provoked this inyesvative expression of evangelical militancy?

Question: Genesis occurs:

A. When we say “no” to need and “yes” to status quo.
-or-
B. When we say “yes” to need and “no” to status quo.

Those Were the Days
Nostalgia’s warm embrace grips me every time I hear this 1969 hit, sung by Mary Hopkins, written by Gene Raskin, putting English lyrics to a Russian song:

Those were the days my friend,
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
La la la la…

I remember it well, 1969: Beatles, Bell Bottom Jeans, tie-die shirts, electric typewriters, pay phones, 35 cent gas, average salary - $4723, counter-culture, LSD, flower power, Haight Ashbury, free love, Woodstock, Easy Rider, Iron Curtain, communism, Coretta Scott King speaking from the pulpit of St. Paul's Cathedral in London (the first woman to do so), Nixon, Viet Nam, chemical warfare, race riots, student antiwar movement, Weather Underground, Operation Chaos. Ah yes, “Those were the days my friend…”

Chaos: “A state of utter confusion (Merriam-Webster).

Chaos is the incubator for creativity and innovation. Genesis occurs when we say “No!” to status quo (things as they were/are) and “Yes!” to need (things as they will be). Another word for status quo is, “culture.”

Cultures collide.
Chaos ensues.
Cravings arise.

Crave: “to have a strong desire for something” (Encarta).

Need-Based Response
Genesis is the creative response to our need-based cravings. John Stott said, “Vision begins with a holy discontent with the way things are.” Allow me to substitute the word, “vision,” with the word, Genesis, in this context.

Need: “Necessary, Essential.

Necessity: “The mother of invention” (Plato).

This idea is best illustrated in one of Aesop’s Fables, “The Crow and the Pitcher.”

A crow perishing with thirst saw a pitcher, and hoping to find water, flew to it with delight. When he reached it, he discovered to his grief that it contained so little water that he could not possibly get at it. He tried everything he could think of to reach the water, but all his efforts were in vain. At last he collected as many stones as he could carry and dropped them one by one with his beak into the pitcher, until he brought the water within his reach and thus saved his life.

This truth of this fable is illustrated historically and visually at the following website:

Schoolhouse Rock – Mother Necessity

“They need me, they need you, they need…” Genesis people creatively respond to a need and fill it!

2. YES!

The above depicts a new film about to debut. I know little about it, except to say that it is based on a true story where the main character is challenged to say yes to everything that comes his way in his life for one whole year, leading to a series of comic events. Think about this in the context - “ONE WORD CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING” – the premise of this chapter (Book).

“Yes!” to Genesis
In the beginning God was saying “No!” to status quo (“status no”) and “Yes!” to Genesis (Creation): Sky, land, oceans, plants, sun, moon, fish, wild animals, cattle, reptiles, man, woman: “YES!” Genesis is the spiritual counterpart to innovation (a secularly derived concept). Genesis takes the “no” out of innovation and replaces it with “yes.” Allow me to invent a new word here, “Inyesvation” which now becomes a modern Genesis counterpoint.

Culture: “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization” (Merriam-Webster).

Every new inyesvation will ultimately create its own unique culture, appropriate for that particular time, place and setting. As Genesis continues to unfold there will be a natural reluctance to embrace and assimilate each new ethos as it emerges, clinging tight to what has now become status quo – “things as they were.” Nostalgia is a powerful emotion, none of us immune to it. Thus eventually our “clinging” will be defined by “an unhealthy refusal to let go of the past,” leading to chaos (Status quo + innovation = chaos). In other words, “the enemy is us.”

Nostalgia: Longing – saying “Yes!” to the past and “No!” to Genesis.

Monument to Genesis
Cornel West, Professor of Religion, Princeton, writes: “America—this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of the NO into the YES, needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and remake it.”

Permit me to paraphrase the above by substituting the words, “America,” with “The Salvation Army,” “genius” with Genesis and “citizens” with “Soldiers.” Reread the quote in this context and adding the tag line—“see things as they will be.”

Charles Schultz, creator of the innovative comic strip, “Charlie Brown,” daringly chose themes never before attempted in mainstream cartoons, many of them philosophically spiritual in content. His work inspired the Broadway Musical, “You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown,” with one of the featured songs appropriately titled, “My New Philosophy.” A performance of this number can be found on YouTube via the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyplR5IZyUU

For those without internet accessibility or savvy, here’s a lyrical sampling:

SCHROEDER]
That's your new philosophy?

[SALLY]
Why are you telling me?
My new philosophy!

[SCHROEDER]
That's great, Sally, but I've gotta go practice Chopin's
Nocturne in B-Flat minor.

[SALLY]
No!! I like it! "No!" That's a good philosophy.
"No!" "No!" "No!"

[SCHROEDER]
That's your new philosophy, huh?

[SALLY]
Yes. I mean-- "No!"

Philosophy: A system of values by which one lives (The Free Dictionary).

YES!