Pastor’s Corner: The Same Mistakes

 July 7, 2021

In some of my down time, I enjoy watching The Great British Baking Show. It’s based on the same concept as most American “reality television” programs: The contestants face a weekly set of challenges, do their best to meet them, and at the end of the program one of them is eliminated from the contest. In most American series, the producers invest a certain amount of time in emphasizing relentless competition, encouraging outrageous statements from the participants such as “I didn’t come here to make friends.”

On The Great British Baking Show, they took the opposite approach. The bakers help one another move cakes and pies from pan to stand, offer encouraging words, and express tearful regret as their opponents depart. It’s a lovely testimony to humanity.

Both kinds of reality TV (really, it’s a game show, you know) share one characteristic and it’s probably not something that can be changed: the contestants tend to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Consistency in life is frequently useful and admirable. It’s often praised, but it’s often praised at the expense of learning and growth. It’s one thing to repeat the same actions if they had a good result before. It’s another thing to repeat them and expect a better one. It’s a pattern into which we fall all too often.

What’s been working well for us? What has raised spirits, fed souls? Those things are worth trying again.

What hasn’t worked well? What has fallen flat, or worse, made things worse?

We can leave those things behind.

With aloha,

Pastor Eric

Blurry photo by Eric Anderson