Humility and transparency

I just read the recent blog of Mary Ann Davidson the Chief Security Officer at Oracle:

http://blogs.oracle.com/maryanndavidson/2010/07/the_fault_dear_brutus_is.html

In this Open Source world, we have to be careful to work together. It’s too easy to get prideful and go our own ways. In fact, Open Source calls that “forking” a project, and encourages it.

As Christians, we must do better. Paul admonishes us (yes, us geeks today!) in Eph. 5:21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Submit–it means the same as in the phrase “submit your code patches.” We can submit our work, our ideas (esp. our shiny, cool ones) to each other, because we trust that Jesus is working through each other.

The article by Mary Ann Davidson talks about the acronym madness that we “technologist” get stuck in. She’s right. And the sad truth is that I’ve done it, too, just to make myself look smart, or keep someone from understanding my lack of understanding.

So, we have to be transparent, esp. about our weaknesses. Again, Paul has some encouragement, in Eph. 4:2, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” (He also said it in Colossians 3:13. I’ll bet those Ephesians and Colossians would have made some amazing programmers!)

Because what is our purpose? To code some cool thingies? To be honored and respected as much as Linus Torvalds? Or Guido van Rossum? No, no and no. Rather, our aim is to provide tools to help our fellow workers, as they pursue God’s calling on their lives. To build up the body of Christ, using the gifts God has given us, even the non-spiritual Gift of Geekiness.

The end goal: to bring God glory. And that goes directly against any building of our own kingdoms, or any golden cows. (Thanks, again for the illustration, Mary Ann.)