Spill the Beans
Idioms and Prayers #10
My thoughts…
When was the last time you had a secret that you couldn’t wait to reveal? Can you feel the sensation of thrill and anticipation as you desperately try to keep something to yourself, until it wells up and out of you and, whether deliberately or more likely unintentionally, it spills out of you.
The spilling metaphor works best as liquid for me. Just yesterday as I was busy writing I spilled my glass of water. A classic manoeuvre for me. Absorbed in thinking about whatever I’m doing, I wave my hands to think. In doing so, my hands inevitably collide with whatever drink is in the way. I have become a whizz at drying out paper and books. I’ve even dried out my laptop more than once, but fortunately, it is like a cat with nine lives!
A curious thing
So why beans? I’m imagining one of those bulk-bins, where you scoop up beans to pour them into a bag. Miss the edge of the bag? You spill the beans. Overfill the bag? You spill the beans. Amy Grant had a song on her Behind the Eyes album called Curious Thing which talked of weighing up rice and beans. It came to mind when I thought of spilled beans.
Let me tell you 'bout a kid I knew
A pudgy girl back in school
She had greasy hair and geeky glasses
Object of ridicule
The other day in the check out line
They were ringing up my rice and beans
There she was, a pretty little face
On the cover of a magazine
And I said life is a curious thing
Life, ooh life is a curious thing
Just goes to show that you never know
Just what tomorrow may bring
But I'll tell you this that what it is
Is seldom what it seems
'cause life is a curious thing
Life, ooh life is a curious thing- Amy Grant, Curious Thing
Life can be curious. And isn’t it great that it is? Weighing everything up. Wondering about our rice and beans. If everything had predictability all of the time, where would we find the wonder? Where would we be surprised by joy? Where would be our spark of adventure? How could we yearn for something we didn’t have? How could we love deeply and widely? Where would our faith journey take us? Would we even have a faith journey?
It’s those curious things that happen upon us unexpectedly that make our lives colourful and interesting. When something surprising, curious, exciting and thrilling happens, it’s only natural to want to tell someone else. Keeping that secret inside can be torture. Of course we want to spill the beans!
It’s also those curious things that create scandal and feed salacious gossip. “Come on, spill the beans,” isn’t perhaps a harmless saying about sharing something joyful. Instead, it is possibly an encouragement to share something a little bit scandalous about someone else, to share a secret that shouldn’t be shared, to let out something to the listener that the listener has no right to hear. Like a journalist with a ‘scoop’, we find ourselves in a position of making a choice, of pouring out the information we hold, releasing it from our thoughts and sending it out into the wild to do whatever it will do when heard by others.
Spilling into thanksgiving
Spilling beans, it seems, can bring a wonderful release of sharing joy or it can be a burden of releasing something else entirely. As followers of Jesus, we have a responsibility to speak with love. We also acknowledge the frailty of people, ourselves included, and bring God’s grace and compassion to both what we speak about and what actions and thoughts we take on what we hear.
We are constantly bombarded with spilled beans from both traditional media and our less truth-filtered social media feeds, so much so that we can become numb to the nonsense we read. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by what is shared as truth, but curiously is no such thing. In the meantime, we have to live our very ordinary, everyday lives. We want to do this in an authentic way.
Life is indeed a curious thing. How do we live it? That is also curious, but we have the opportunity to live life full of thanksgiving for our God who is abundantly generous and continually spills love into our lives.
My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
-Colossians 2:6-7 The Message
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
Meaning
To tell or let slip secret information to others.
Prayer
Scoop beans. Hold the scoop of beans in your hand and look at what you’ve scooped.
Think about a piece of information you have about someone that other people might be interested in knowing but you know is confidential.
Let the beans sitting in your scoop pour back into the basket, bowl or container.
As you watch the emptying scoop, give this bit of information you hold into God’s care. Invite God to help you stay appropriately silent, or to guide you in speaking to the right person at the right time.
Scoop beans again. Hold the scoop of beans in your hand and look at what you’ve scooped.
Consider the joyful abundance that comes from God. Let thanksgiving for the way God comes alongside us in good and troubling times, build up inside your thoughts.
Let the beans sitting in your scoop pour back into the basket, bowl or container.
Let your prayer spill out of you in a torrent of thanksgiving.
If you’re using this prayer in a group setting
Spread large basins or wide shallow baskets or containers spread around the meeting space. Place a jar of spoons next to each basket. Invite people to stand in small groups around each basket, so that each person has space to scoop and pray.
The Curiosity Journey
Join me this June in my month long retreat, The Curiosity Journey
Do you love a good question? How do you feel about exploring something new? Can the pull of nostalgia coexist with hope for the future? The Curiosity Journey is an invitation to participate in an experience of wonder and discovery. This month-long retreat-style resource is designed for those open to being curious and to let that curiosity lead an exploration of faith and possibility.
Throughout the ages, the Church has flexed and changed alongside contemporary society and culture. In some eras, change was enormous. In other periods, time seemed to stand still, the decades stretching to centuries with a routine rhythm to the ways of practicing Christian faith. Not so long ago, the Church was the place of answers and moral codes. In many countries, at least one church building could be found in every small village and town.
Today, as ancient church buildings find new lives as homes or galleries, our internal spiritual landscapes are also profoundly changing. The horizon is shifting. We’re experiencing an unquenchable thirst to find new pathways for faith.
Once, the trend was to know the right answer, and asking questions was akin to having doubts and lacking faith. Increasingly today, as an expression of our faith, there is a hunger for asking questions that have no easy answers. In this curious space where humans and our technologies fall short of the answers we seek, we connect with the mysteries of God.
Reaching into our past, searching for curios, sitting contemplatively in the present and casting forward with hope into what might be ahead on our path, The Curiosity Journey is a creative approach to re-enchanting our Christian faith, inspiring wonder and awe.
What do you think about this saying? How do you feel about holding onto a secret? What do you find curious? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or hit reply to this post and email me. I will reply to all emails… even if it takes me a few days to get back to you!