Rough around the edges

Tomorrow it will be a week that I've been feeling literally sick about a situation I'm dealing with. I'll decline to comment on the details online, but I will say it is a situation where I was treated with a considerable amount of disrespect. I find myself wondering if I could ever be a person who can experience these kinds of things and let it roll off my back. Instead, I ruminate, fret, and have trouble sleeping. Why does the opinion of 1-2 people who don't like me seem to matter more than the opinions of possibly dozens of people who do?

In the midst of feeling this way I had the opportunity for a non-job interview. What that means is that I'm in the middle of a fed gov't process to be in a pool of people that could be called upon when a job does open. This is about as close to my dream job as I could probably get. Monday I had an interview which also included a 10 minute presentation I had to make. The situation above has me so screwed up that I had much more stress than usual - there was a moment about 15 minutes before the interview that I thought I was going to have a full blown panic attack. But I got through - even after I realized that rather than transferring my presentation to a memory stick I had put a shortcut to my presentation one the memory stick. I.e. I did not have my PowerPoint with me. The interviewers seemed understanding. There were looks and nods that I interpreted positively as the process went on. I learned that 14/177 people have made it to the interview stage, so that 's pretty good. But to have made it this far and then flub it at the end would really, really suck.

Despite the emotional upheaval, I would have to say I feel closer to God than I have in years. Rob and I have both been reading McLaren's books and have found them extremely helpful in making sense of things that have seemed incongruent in the past. I have a greateer sense that I am a part of something bigger than myself. I had a moment today that seemed like such a God-moment, a pocket of holiness in the middle of Tim Horton's. I'm finding I can trust even while walking through this crap.

I attended a workshop that simulates the experience of hearing voices such as people with schizophrenia do. It was extremely eye-opening. The process was disorienting and confusing and the behaviours of people with schizophrenia make more sense to me now because I found I started to act the same way - I had trouble concentrating, I couldn't answer simple questions and I started laughing out loud.

Today

Saturday I heard that someone I went to college with died. I had heard through the alumni news that Vic had cancer. I had emailed he and his wife and posted to their Care Pages board a couple of times before he passed on. Sunday I got a call from another alumni. Vic's wife had asked her to call around and see if the people that had been in a music group with Vic could come and sing at his funeral. I was in that group.

I felt a bit weird about this: 1) I have not sung in front of people for years, 2) I have not seen Vic or his wife in years, 3) I have not seen people I would probably see at the funeral for years, and I don't consider college (the first time through) to be the most stable part of my life. No, I was not attending systematic theology classes in the day and smoking crack at night. I just had very distorted perceptions of myself (I didn't like me) and others (I thought a lot of people looked down on me).

But something was strongly telling me I should do this. It came down to this: when someone dies, a typical response is to say, "If there's anything I can do, please let me know." Well, she let us know. And I had it within my power to do something that would be meaningful to someone during a very difficult time.

When I told someone at work about this, he said, "It sounds like a movie." And it kind of was. I told Rob it reminded me of "The Big Chill" - only I didn't sleep with anyone. People who haven't seen each other in 19 years (some a bit less) get together and we talk about our lives, our jobs, our kids, our memories of Vic and each other, and we try to come to terms with what the death of a 37 year old father of five means to us. That and running into people we dated is always interesting.

Through it all I discovered some stuff:

First, I do pretty darn good at pulling off the alto part of "It is Well With My Soul" even with very little time to practice.

Second, we were probably all angst-filled college students who were way too self-absorbed and making mountains out of molehills. People are just people. If others had a pecking order in their mind, I think they've lost it with maturity. I know I have. I can get over it and feel comfortable with people I never felt comfortable with before.

Third, I allowed a relationship that was really important to me to fall down - and both of us seem to regret it and blame ourselves. Maybe some things can be resurrected. Hope so.

Fourth, there is something very, very good, about weeping with those who weep, because in addition to supporting the weeper, in the midst of death we remember what life is about. That is a hidden privilege.

Thank you, God.

Fast Food Nation

Another book I read lately is Fast Feed Nation. It was not at all what I expected. It talked very little about fast food's effects on individuals - rather the focus was on fast food's effects on society, it's contributions not only to obesity but to poverty, poor food safety, crime, the widening gap between the poor and the rich, the powerful and the powerless. An unbridled market economy does not lead to positive societal ends for many, only for a few. Fast food has been an important influencer in creating systems where people are exploited and hurt, and a few benefit.

I'm pondering now how my own buying decisions can support something that is so destructive or I can choose to purchase what does something different. It is impossible not to support corporations at some level, but maybe, just maybe, I can support the ones doing the most good or the least wrongs.

The Secret Message of Jesus

I recently read The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren. McLaren continues to challenge and inspire me, along with Donald Miller.

I have come to appreciate that I've bought into viewing the Bible in ways it was not written: as a systematic theology, as a how-to manual, as a guarantee, as a horoscope of what's to come. Much of the Bible is narrative, and if I'm not coming to it as narrative, I'm missing something.

In The Secret, McLaren points out how Jesus never really talked very obviously - he "hid" his message in parables, in strange sayings, in miraculous works. Most presentations of the gospel that I've heard make it very clear, matter of fact: repent, believe, be saved. Miller points out that all these points that we think are so important and all-consuming are never found in the same place in scripture. Maybe reducing things to a few key phrases takes out too much.

I also really, really appreciated his take on end times stuff. Revelation is full of metaphor and imagery - to take it and try to deduce exact events that are to come is probably missing the whole point of the book. If God wanted us to clearly know what was going to happen adn when it was going to happen, he could have influenced it's writing in that exact way. He didn't. McLaren talks about viewing it as, if I remember correctly, warnings and promises, and that makes so much more sense to me. We cannot possibly know what will happen - God hasn't told us. But he has revealed his character to us, and that is even better.

Update

Robbie's back is still bad, bad, bad, but he's doing a bit more each day. I think I've become a little better at 1) not stressing the small stuff and 2) asking for help. That was quite the revelation - as a social worker I preach the value of community, relationships, helping each other out and asking for what we need. But I find it very hard to live it when I'm the one who needs to be on the receiving end.

Today I am feeling sore in my lower back. Please don't go out, please don't go out, please don't go out.