Sammie had a routine. Maybe we’d say a habit. The very first thing Sammie did after coming home was kick off whatever shoes Sammie was wearing. It was a way of saying, “Now I can relax.” The action was usually accompanied by a sigh of relief.

The kicked off shoes formed a pile in the middle of the floor. Sammie thought about putting the shoes somewhere out of the way, but it was easy to walk around the pile. And it was also easier to spend a little extra time in the morning sorting through the pile of shoes than it would be to organize them and figure out what to do with them all.

Sammie’s method worked great for Sammie. But then Sammie gained some roommates. Sammie was nervous about sharing space with other people. So, Sammie said up front, “I kick my shoes off as soon as I walk in the door, and I just leave them in a big pile. It’s just what I do.” 

The new roommates thought this was unusual at first, but soon enough they all adopted the same habit. Every time they got home, as soon as they walked in the door, they kicked off their shoes into a big pile. 
Now, some of you are cringing right now. You can’t imagine navigating around a big pile of shoes in the middle of the floor. You probably think people would trip over such a huge pile of shoes all the time. And you’re right. The pile of shoes were a real problem.

People always tripping over the shoes, sometimes getting a bit bruised up in the process. They also had a really difficult time disentangling their own shoes from everyone else’s. Sammie needed a lot longer every morning to find a pair of matching shoes among everyone else’s in the pile. 

But nobody wanted to mention how much of a problem the pile of shoes had become. It’s the only way they’d ever dealt with shoes (or avoided dealing with them) as a household. The only time it really came up was when someone was so angry about the shoes that they blurted something out just to vent. And when that happened, it was usually blaming someone else in the household for leaving their shoes in the middle of the floor, even though everybody’s shoes were in the middle of the floor.

One day, Braden got really hurt tripping over the big pile of shoes. There was a lot of yelling, but Braden ultimately decided to leave. It was so abrupt that Braden even left a bunch of shoes in the pile. 
Walking in the door and kicking off shoes was what Sammie had always done. It was how Sammie dealt with stressful days. It was Sammie’s habit. Now Sammie was thinking that there was maybe a better way to deal with shoes. But it was hard to imagine doing things differently. 

What’s the pile of shoes in the middle of your workplace or family or congregation? How do you contribute to the pile of shoes? How do you navigate around it, and how successfully do you avoid tripping over it? What does the pile of shoes prevent you from creating in that space? What would it take to do something different with your shoes?