-Fr. John Roche, SDB
I am no longer sure what my Enneagram number is, nor do I remember the wing personalities associated with it. I have been an INFJ, an ENFJ and an INFP depending on the time and circumstances of my Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
And for all the practical good those tools of assessing personality offer, there are other categories I remember from other sessions and workshops that I have never forgotten.
At the top of that list is the personality described as “bean-counter.” This is the person who lives by comparison to an annoying and debilitating degree. You’ve met them before.
For example, that person at work who always asks how much you make, whether you got a Christmas bonus or not and where you are going on vacation. It is fairly evident the motivation for obtaining such information is not to share your joy, but to measure how unfairly life is treating the person asking the questions. Bean-counters populate every sandbox, playground, sports-field, every office and every neighborhood.
And — surprise, surprise — they even occupy the Church at every level.
Now it would be easy, and it is tempting, to talk about all those other people out there who are bean-counters, but let me begin by sharing some of my own embarrassing discoveries in my morning meditations. Just when I was beginning to be very proud of myself for my prayerful observance and diligence, it hit me one day what a miserable “bean-counter” I had become. There I was sitting in my place in chapel in my religious community unconsciously counting just who was there and who was not there each day. I noted who happened to be late and then added my own judgment about what bad habits this one or that one had. I tripped over my own petty pre-occupations about praying styles and set myself up as judge of which homilies deserved my attention.
This may all seem like fluff to you, but this revelation hit me with great force! How much time and energy I had been putting into being better than, more punctual than, more diligent than others. And what a waste of prayer space and the opportunities to deepen my walk with God!
I share all of this while embracing the good news of Lent and the good news of our collective story. It is simply this: our own God is NOT a bean-counter. He does not dwell on our sinfulness nor store up points for our charity. The whole message of the Paschal Mystery is simple: Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing! And how blessed we are!
So, the next time I catch myself comparing this or that or feeling smug about my own importance, I will remember that my God is NOT a bean-counter. What he counts are the number of hairs on my head, the beats of my heart and every moment I cry out to him. My God IS a good-shepherd who wastes no time counting the sheep who are not lost but is bent on finding me and all of us bean-counters lost out there in world of comparisons. He knows we don’t know, really, what we are doing! Thank God!