It is hard to miss the enormous Tesla factory situated on I-880, between Oakland and San Jose.  Not only is the facility mammoth, the signage is matched to its facade: T-E-S-L-A.  But before Model 3s were being rolled out there, the plant belonged to GM and Toyota, in a joint venture known as NUMMI.

The two rivals partnered together in the 1980s for mutually beneficial reasons: GM sucked (meaning they couldn’t build reliable, profitable small cars), and Congress was preparing to squeeze Toyota imports (because they decidedly didn’t suck). Toyota needed to start building their Corollas here.

The results were impressive: Toyota kept growing their brand and the Chevy Novas that started coming off the line were both way more reliable and much more profitable.  NUMMI was an incredible success story. (There is a great This American Life podcast about this: Episode 561.  Check it out…)

However, GM’s other plants were struggling.  And so they set out to duplicate in their other facilities what they had learned from Toyota at NUMMI.  But this is how they went about it: one manager was told to grab a camera, take photos of every square inch of the operation, and set out to copy it in their particular plant.

Which didn’t work.  (GM famously filed for bankruptcy in 2009, pulling out of the NUMMI plant that same year.)

Because what did work at NUMMI was immeasurable: the vision, the culture, the spirit that Toyota brought to the table.  And—again—no camera can capture that.  GM seemed to only be interested in the soil of their work, to the exclusion of its spirit.

It is not just that a valley like Yosemite has an immeasurable spirit to it.  It is not just that you and I and every other person who has ever lived have an immeasurable spirit to them.  There is also a spirit to every home, every workplace, every team, every system and government and elementary school and restaurant and DMV.  (I know, that last one is hard to believe…)

Which means that we should not only be paying attention to the immeasurable realities of our natural surroundings and our natural selves, but also to the immeasurable realities of the places where we work and shop and recreate and worship.

Because there are a lot of systems that are only about their soil, and have no time to foster their spirit.  Profitability is fine, but not if it is at the expense of justice and mercy and goodness and service and beauty.  Measurable success can be good, but not if it is at the expense of somebody else’s well-being.

This is important, because we need to know what we are dealing with here.  Some people and businesses and political parties and places of worship are toxic…and toxic to us.  We need to know what we are getting ourselves into, what waters we are swimming in.

But not for the purpose of resentment.  This is just more toxicity.  The purpose of our reflection on the spirit behind the soil of the systems and communities we live in and deal with is so that we can pay attention to what they are doing to us, but also what they need from us.

And that is the good news: who we are becoming and what we are bringing matters.  Our being can’t help but impact what systems are becoming, whether we can see it or not.  We bring something to the table.  We bring something to the gathering.  We bring something to the neighborhood.

We can bring our own toxicities: our self-focused ambitions, our fear, our bitterness, our resentment…

…or…

…we can bring our joy, our generosity, our forgiveness, our patience, our love. 

And that does something to the soil of a place.