Interestingly, there was a TV program I watched the other night after we talked and my company went home, which addressed the subject of order and variety. It did it in a very unique way.
Seems a new police chief came to town and one of the first things he learned was that the majority of crime in his city happened between the hours of 6PM and 2AM. He also found that only 20% of his most senior – thus most experienced – police officers were ever on duty during those hours. Because of seniority these experienced officers were able to draw daylight hours, thus leaving the city essentially in the hands of rookies during its most vulnerable hours.
Of course being the astute chief that he was he issued an order that for the foreseeable future all senior officers would pull duty during 6PM and 2AM. As can be imagined, there was an outcry of anger from these experienced policemen who felt they were entitled to have a better shift because they had earned it. Not only was there an outcry, but acting against this compulsive order was manifest by officers just not showing up for work or being excessively late for shifts. One act of blowback really caused chaos at police headquarters when officers began bringing their children to work and dumping them off on some of the clerical staff, claiming they couldn’t get childcare.
This grumbling was intense for the first month and then began to taper off during successive months as more and more of the officers began to realize they really liked having this late shift so they could have freedom during the daytime hours to do many other things. In fact, so much so that the chief realized he could loosen the mandatory nature of this assignment and still have enough senior staff to man those critical hours.
The change was so remarkable in that some of the most intense objectors to the mandate soon became its greatest supporters, seeing that this imposed order actually gave them more variety in their lives. Then we find the chief uttering this amazing statement:
“Out of chaos comes order.”
The change of attitude didn’t come by mandate but by individuals making within themselves a paradigm shift – awakening if you will to many personal benefits coming their way, not the least of which was increased pride in their profession because of their greater impact on the afore rampant crime in their city:
And all of this because they simply changed their minds and not because the chief rescinded the order to take their turn working what he called “the super shift.”
Here it seems we have order (even to the extent of compulsion) producing variety among the whole police force without producing continued chaos.
Men are agents unto themselves, even in most cases of tyrannical order, and especially in this society, and can conduct themselves, if they so choose, without being part of the chaos going on all around them. This is seen in a couple of other movies depicting real life situations, such as “Birdman of Alcatraz, and ” Bridge Over the River Kwai.”
Just look at what our Savior did with the order imposing his humble and humiliating circumstances.
He rose to become a God!
Keith