How many times have you just wished that you could be in the room when decisions are being made? That your voice could impact decisions that are going to directly impact you. Your family. Your team. Your nation. The world. From the outside, way too often, it seems like decisions that people make are uninformed and completely nonsensical.
Every time an NFL star gets traded to a new team for far less, or exorbitantly more than what I feel like they are worth, I get this overwhelming feeling of desperately wanting to have been in the room when that feel went down. I mean what was it that made Julio Jones only worth a 2nd and 4th round pick, when the Saints traded their entire 1999 draft plus their 1st and 3rd round picks in the 2000 draft for the chance to draft Ricky Williams? How do billion NFL dollar franchises get fleeced so bad... How good are some of these General Managers that they can convince a colleague that their assets have so little value? Are they salesmen? Because it seems like some of them are swindlers, conmen, master negotiators. I’d love to sit at the table and just watch... or maybe shake a GM and scream “wake up!” you’re getting fleeced!
In the Broadway Musical, Hamilton, Arron Burr sings the song ”The Room Where It Happens” and powerfully expresses the desire we all experience at one point in time or another: to be in the room where it happens. To matter.
I, I wanna be in the room where it happens,
the room where it happens
I gotta be (the room where it happens)
I gotta be (the room where it happens)
I’ve got to be in the room (the room where it happens)
I gotta be, I gotta be, gotta be (the room where it happens)
In the room (I wanna be in the room where it happens)
This is the song, the moment , that shines a light onto who Burr is, and what he want’s most. There’s a reprise later that precedes Burr’s challenge to Hamilton. A Duel. The fatal duel that (217 YEAR OLD SPOILER ALERT) leaves Hamilton dead and Burr on the run charged with Treason. It’s powerful because it’s true. You have something that you would do absolutely anything necessary to make sure you are a part of. You have to have your voice heard at that table. You have to be in the room where it happens.
I saw a poignant tweet from Stephen Price, a prayer:
“Father forgive me for the times I desired a seat at at table you would’ve flipped.”
That’s right, it’s all too easy to forget those passages in Matthew 21:12-13, and Mark 11:15-18 where Jesus walks into the temple and literally flips the tables of the money changers and the benches of the merchants. Talk about epic! Jesus started flipping tables!
Jesus wasn’t interested in having a seat at the table. He didn’t want to discuss the exchange rates of foreign currency. He wasn’t interested in discussing ethical temple practices with the board. He didn’t care about widespread economic impact of disrupting Israel’s primary source of revenue. Jesus knew the table needed to be flipped, not sat down to. Injustice requires justice, not adjustment.
Yes, my fandom keeps me keenly interested in the New Orleans Saints’ decisions, but I know it’s not what’s really important in life. I know there are things in life that are significantly more impactful. And I’m willing to bet that you’re a lot like me. You find yourself getting distracted and walking into the wrong rooms and fighting to sit at the wrong tables. You spend your time fighting for your voice to be heard on popular topics and hot button issues. You need people to know where you stand, and what’s right. So why do we lack the ability to produce meaningful change in a world so desperately in need of change? A world begging for change?
Because some tables aren’t meant to be sat at, they need to be flipped. Arguments need to be completely reframed, not argued within false pretense. Facts need to be corrected, but being pedantic just exhausts people. Stop talking symptoms and start implementing cures. Yes that means less talking and more doing. Yes that means leaving your level of luxury and serving someone. Stop waiting for outside forces to fix injustice. Start brining justice with you into your world.
Be the change you want to see in the world. Do something you don’t have to do.
You don’t need to try to be in the room where it happens. You are the room where it happens. You choose which tables you sit at, and which tables need to be flipped.
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