Step Outside

Malcolm McLean did not set out to revolutionize global trade. He just wanted to get home for Thanksgiving.

In 1937 McLean trucked a load of goods up to a shipping dock and settled into the queue of vehicles. It would be hours before brawny gangs of longshoremen manhandled all that cargo and stowed it on the freighter. He'd never make it home in time for the turkey and stuffing. With nothing to do but wait, McClean began speculating: Wouldn't it be more efficient if they could somehow heft his entire consignment at once and slide it onto the boat, rather than toting each item individually?

Before he was through, McLean had invented the shipping container - those massive steel oblongs that allow you to buy oranges in December, a cell phone from China, or a t-shirt made in Bangladesh. The standard wisdom in the industry said that the key to efficiency was to build faster ships. McLean had a different take: the key was to build faster docks.

Funny thing is, the inventing was the easy part. Convincing industry insiders took longer - a lot longer. In the end, McLean had to buy and refit his own vessels, purchase a dock, and put his ideas into practice himself. But he sunk loading costs from nearly six bucks a ton to sixteen cents, and revolutionized, not only an industry, but the global economy.

The trucker saw what the titans missed. The outsider had a fresh perspective unavailable to the experts. Sometimes the best way to see what's going on all around you is to step outside of it.

The wise men saw the star. Why didn't anyone else? Presumably it was right up there in the sky, which is open-source software, available to anybody. The wise men understood the star. Why didn't anybody else? The relevant text of Scripture, presumably Numbers 24.17, was right there in the Bible for anyone to read. These guys weren't Jews; they were basically a bunch of Zoroastrian soothsayers who bought into astrology. Well, that was just it: as outsiders, they saw what the theologians missed.

And, of course, nobody listened. One might think that the religious experts, once the magi gave them the tip, would have loaded their stuff into the nearest shipping container, settled it between the humps of a gassed-up camel, and roared off to Bethlehem. Instead, they sort of shrugged and went back to working for Herod, another outsider who did, in fact, listen to this new take on things.

What are we missing at this Christmas season? How can we adopt an outsider perspective that might reveal Christ to us in ways our accustomed and conditioned hearts and minds miss? The next time you're stuck in a checkout line at Walmart, only wanting to get home at a decent hour, let your mind - and even your soul - drift for a minute. See the star. Read the text. If all the wonders of the Incarnation were written down, not even the sum total of all the shipping containers on the whole planet could haul the books that would be written.

There's always more to see for those who keep looking.