Wisdom’s Call
Wisdom comes in many different packages. She is the si-lent partner who stands nearby during stressful episodes of un-conquerable challenges. Wisdom is faithful and always ready to nudge us in the right direction. Often she comes from unsus-pecting sources, and presents herself whether we heed her in-structions or not. Our failure to listen and follow her has severe consequences.
During a recent presentation to the Pension Boards of the United Church of Christ about enterprise risk management, at-torney Melanie Herman of Washington, D.C., quoted author Douglas Adams, creator of the best selling book and television series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxies. said, “The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possi-bly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.”
Adams’ wise observation was prophetic as we turn our at-tention to the crisis that continues at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico where British Petroleum workers and the Coast Guard are finding it “impossible to get at or repair.”
Authorities describe the “Great Oil Spill of 2010” as the worst unnatural disaster in the world. More shocking is the revelation that most of the major oil companies are operating under the same conditions and specifications that BP used for its offshore drilling.
Failure to listen and follow wisdom has consequences. In this case, it has hurt marine and human life.
What will it take for us to heed wisdom’s call? How many times must we repeat our mistakes before we change our ways? Is greed the ruling god that governs our decisions and dictates our behavior?
Accidents can happen at any time by anyone. Of course, we understand there are risks involved in almost all enterprises. We do not live in a safe world. Social and scientific advancements require risk. The problem is when we either minimize risks or calculate them at such a ridiculously low level as to render the enterprise unbelievably safe or risk-free.
We have seen this scenario before when the Titanic sunk to the bottom of the sea after its designers declared the ship unsink-able. Ms. Herman cited another example of unwise and un-founded confidence that defied reality and produced a tragic outcome.
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During the Rogers Commission’s investigation of the space shuttle Challenger’s 1986 explosion, there were findings of “ex-traordinary differences in predictions of failure (resulting in the loss of equipment and human life)” and a “disconnect between perspectives of NASA’s engineers and executives.”
According to the engineers, the prediction for failure meas-ured one-in-fifty to one-in-one-hundred (1: 50 to 1:100). How-ever, NASA executives estimated the chances of disaster at one-in-one-hundred-thousand (1:100,000). Ms. Herman calls the executives’ projections “catastrophic overconfidence.”
That is exactly what we have witnessed again among the BP executives. The force of a gushing geyser at five thousand feet below the sea cannot be accurately measured. More signifi-cantly, there are reports BP actually increased the probability of disaster by cutting costs and reducing safety precautions in their offshore drilling operations. That is beyond “catastrophic over-confidence.” They demonstrated a disregard of Nature and hu-man life.
Adams was absolutely right about the dangers of believing “a thing cannot possibly go wrong…” And now all of us are living with the consequences of foolish conduct and decisions where wisdom was dismissed and ignored.
At the root of this urgent dilemma are the twin evils of in-justice and idolatry. Corporate greed spurns injustice. Acqui-escing to corporate executives is bowing to the priests of false gods. Left unchecked and unregulated puts everybody at risk and we suffer.
Now, what do we do? Do we just accept and live with the consequences? We must confess our complicity and repent. Therein is our hope. We must learn from our mistakes and commit ourselves to go another way. It is time to embrace wisdom and seek God’s mercy.
-The Rev. Dr. Art Cribbs
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