Answering some questions about my faith
When I was in Cleveland and Cape Town on my journeyman tour, one of the talks I gave was Abe, Ayn, Jerry, Chris … and me. One of the attendees emailed me last month with some tough follow-up questions relating to my Christian faith. We’ve had some epic emails back and forth since then and I figured I’d adapt some of my replies into a blog post.
The “Jerry” in my talk’s title is Jerry Weinberg. In part of my talk, I spoke about an experience I had at AYE 2004 in Jerry and Johanna’s Transforming Rules into Guidelines workshop. Through this workshop, I realized some simple guidelines I could follow that help me to do great work in every aspect of my life:
- sleep enough
- be connected with my wife and children
- be connected with God
My reference to my relationship with God led to the first question…
I’m curious to know more about your faith and how you connect to God while working in a large community that seems full of cynicism of the very things you believe.
Despite that the overall theme of our community is non-Christian, I make it known that I am a Christian, and take note when I see someone else claiming a similar faith, and then try to ensure we cross paths. I have had some of the most amazing and life-changing Christian mentoring come out of the Agile and Ruby communities from two men that I look up to (Ken Auer and Patrick Morrison). Both of these guys are role models to me and have also helped me through some tough times over the years. I literally sat down and prayed with Patrick at SCNA last November. I literally stood in an opening prayer of an XP-style standup meeting with Ken’s team a month ago. Experiences like these help me connect to God in the context of our community.
Reaching out like you’re doing right now is one of the best ways I know of to connect God in the context of our community. This is called communion! :) Being open about your faith on the web opens the door to cross paths with other people who feel like there is no space for spirituality in our field.
I should also mention I’m careful about what I expose myself to in the community. Specifically, I’m diligent about trimming down my Google Reader and Twitter input to a healthy mix of people I agree with and people who expose me to ideas that challenge me. I unfollow negativity and antagonism.
Next question…
I’m curious how your view of mankind and God’s relationship to his creation affects your work as a software craftsman.
The best thing I can do is point to Frederick Brooks’ quotes in The Mythical Man Month, at the beginning and end of his book:
“First is the the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God’s delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.”
“To only a fraction of the human race does God give the privilege of earning one’s bread doing what one would have gladly pursued free, for passion. I am very thankful.”
God created us in his likeness. Did he plop us down in Eden as a fully-formed human? Or did we grow over millennia into what we are now? I don’t have the answer, but I believe he started things in motion and that he has a plan. I discovered when I was 26 that the sheer joy of making things, of solving difficult, logically complex problems, and bringing ideas to life via software, was one of the things that I was made to do. I have discovered more things about myself in the 10 years since then. I am thankful every day that I get to do what I was made for while providing my wife and children with a comfortable life.
The “Abe” in my talk’s title was Abraham Maslow. My talk, and subsequent tweets about Maslow led to this question…
You’ve mentioned Maslow; his writings seem to demonstrate that we are innately good. Yet the stories in the Bible describe us as tainted and in need of rescue.
Before I get to the innately good/flawed question… I just read two things from Maslow recently that actually has something to say related to Brooks above:
“The muscular person like to use his muscles, indeed, he has to use them in order to “feel good” and to achieve the subjective feeling of harmonious, successful, uninhibited functioning (spontaneity) which is so important an aspect of good growth and psychological health. So also for intelligence, for the uterus, the eyes, the capacity to love. Capacities clamor to be used, and cease their clamor only when they are well used. That is, capacities are also needs. Not only is it fun to use our capacities, but it is also necessary for growth. The unused skill or capacity or organ can become a disease center or else atrophy or disappear, thus diminishing the person.”
“We fear our highest possibilities. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments, under conditions of great courage. We enjoy and even thrill to the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments. And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these very same possibilities. Obviously the most beautiful fate, the most wonderful good fortune that can happen to any human being, is to be paid for doing that which he passionately loves to do.”
That integrates cleanly with how I see that we are made by God to glorify him with our talents. It reminds me of my favorite quote from Olympian Eric Liddell from Chariots of Fire:
I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.
Like a lot of people, Liddell had many talents. He believed his life’s purpose was to go to China as a missionary. Yet he couldn’t shake the fact that he was born to run. The beauty of his life was how he integrated his athleticism with his faith and purpose.
As I read Maslow, I see a lot of truth. He writes about human nature and the psyche like one would write about internal organs. This style actually makes it easier to integrate than if he had muddied the psychological truth he discovered within a specific religious tradition. Maslow actually believed that humans needed religion (or something like it) to achieve our full potential:
“The human being needs a framework of values, a philosophy of life, a religion or religion-surrogate to live by and understand by, in about the same sense that he needs sunlight, calcium or love.”
I’m still reconciling the innately good/flawed conflict between Maslow and the Bible. For now, I’m integrating it via the belief that God originally made us good. This would mean the first humans were self-actualized. When we developed a sin nature, we created a series of obstacles to achieving self-actualization, and created an impassable crevasse between us and God. Maslow focuses on how to remove the obstacles in our way to self-actualization. The Bible focuses on how we can be reconciled to God. I believe God wants for all of his children to accomplish both of these things, and as Maslow recognized, a strong spiritual foundation facilitates self-actualization.
