What have I learned?

This long rag of a writ needs to be edited down, perhaps some day I will have time. For now I just need to make in plain… Like in the next paragraph an element that needs to be established for sanity comes in this one. I’ve said it often and to various friends, and folks “If I ever told you to do the wrong thing, who’s job would it be to stop you from doing it?” Well the answer is obvious but I will repeat it so there is no confusion, that it is your responsibility to stop you from doing the wrong thing. The hypothetical ruled me out at the outset… If I tell you to do the wrong thing, be it common error or actual immorality, YOU have got to stop yourself… I can’t help you if I have already been compromised. Duhhh.

So I guess I can start with a little point about doing things right. It violates a principle to teach things that I have not first done, or shown competence/proficiency in. I would not want to teach math, without first having earned my living as a computer programmer, or an engineer… I wouldn’t want to teach accounting without having done the same. It simply strikes at the heart of my distaste for the futility of human institutionality/institutions in which folks create bazaar regulations along the lines of in order to receive a lone you must prove you don’t need one. Or believe that because murder is illegal now nobody will commit it. A little like Einstein’s definition of insanity ‘continuing to do the same thing while expecting a different result.’ To my mind having started with education, and then gone into the trenches of application/experience one comes full circle to a place of being able to teach, and not by skipping the periods of application/practice.

Now I come to a funny circumstance. A polite well meaning Russian person wants me to teach. If it were just he and I it would be a great encouragement to me. That however is not the case. Rather this is a case of an outside woman (possibly more than one, but one comes to mind) seeking to make the events come out such and such away. Having destroyed (to my mind tainted is the same as destroyed) my interpersonal relationships in approaching 10 places of employ and a handful of churches… The madness goes on. I have been made a liar often and repeatedly. Consistent waves of derision come my way in the most inopportune times and places from folks who fail to reject gossip when they first hear it. Just recently my submissions to the ‘opportunity sheet’ and prayer requests at church have been corrupted or wholly omitted because of this woman. (Somebody will want to know more I expect, so if you want to know that, then be warned that there some other much uglier things that have happened in the past too, things I hope guilty parties will receive imprisonment for, and I will happily not your commitment to do aid me in seeking ordinary human justice for these things) Still on and on I have had to show myself more or less flexible. If this person, if she, had her way that would go on to the end of my days.

I have come to a conclusion, a firm conviction, even a resolution. If I do go on to teach now, first, without seeing her face and without taking time to make amends, then there will be a consequence. Admittedly I am not God I can not enforce my will, but I am in submission to Him so it occurs to me, that I’ve not gone very far astray if at all in thinking at this point. If I were so unfortunate to be lead into this teaching qualification, note it is a pedestrian secular title, then the woman is to be put away, and rejected from my future company and I must find female company elsewhere. Catherine will be anathema to me.

Because at that point you will have gained the knowledge that you need never concern yourself with my doctrine, or leadership, or responsibility/authority. At that point you will know by sight, "for sure" that you can simply use your devices, even direct manipulation to get what you want of me. Respect becomes unnecessary. But at that same point I gain the knowledge that you would/will always try to get what you desire, and without proper regard for myself… no mater how perfunctory the respect/regard might be.

At this point I have to say, if it goes that way, I will know you are a usurper or at very best incurably united with one or more of the self-willed mentality. Goals, directions, plans having me as their origin will always be subject to the usurpers whims, (if I join you) and thus never be allowed to live and be true. I have learned all that I need to know. I can have my life, however damaged it may be, under God’s care and guidance, but I can in no wise throw it all away to maintenance, the antithesis of biblical union or even Christian friendship…

Explain this Catherine.

relationships or reading

If life is about relationships then I am spread so thin I can never recover. Moving from friend to friend, and project to project there is no consistency to speak of… the exception is work, which is inevitably has to be a conditional love (or conditional reward if you like) setting. Truth be told I am pretty much hip deep in conditional love out side of work too. It’s like living in a pickle barrel brine and all.

If life is about reading then I am a grazer and a browser, who never finishes a good book… or pretty much anything. I guess other other concerns press in...

Turns out Life is about giving the glory to God. And the good news is God is pretty good at glorifying himself. So mainly try not to stop Him doing that, and you'll get better results. *(can not do that without repentance)

a disadvantage observed

Every misery I endure, every difficulty I encounter, weather defeated or not, becomes a thing you can not ask me to take away from you later on. Rather you may ask to take away a thing, but how will it be required of me? Every deliberate ignorance, every compounded frustration becomes a mounting case against my relieving the suffering of my own subordinates. Now in the case of an ordinary sinner like myself this is one thing, but in the bigger picture it is foundational to understanding grace. The example of Christ makes it overly obvious. Jesus endured suffering and death to give me (us) life. Now that being true it would be foolish of me to turn and demand that Jesus remove suffering and death from me, seeing He had to endure it. The grace looks (at a minimum) like this, every person who doesn't have to be flogged and crucified has been blessed by the one who did. I am nothing like Jesus, but I know a little of what I owe.

a common problem

Hysteresis
Hysteresivity
Emotionally speaking I don't like it, but I sure do get to experience a lot of it.

My friend L *the angst

"It angers me to see you working here/doing this"
I: "Then understand how utterly ashamed I am that this is what I’m at/doing"
L is my friend who I see face to face, and he has an influence on me because he is personal and comes around in person. He has influence and respect BECAUSE he interacts in person. There are an over abundance of absentee impersonal contributors to my life, I long to see them "die a horrible death at the hands of the hob goblin" (and old comic book collecting friend used to say that.) Its not as though I would never instant message with friends, or email etc... but in the end? I don' t think its a very ultimate way to interact. Again the absentee crumbs stink.

My friends helped me (new years)

My friend B helped me rediscover, I’m very interpersonal – relational
We were working and voice messages were discovered on the supervisor phone… but we didn’t have the password… the super said you can work on that on break (not meaning to exploit, but just needing to get other things done with the work time). So I explained to B later on, that I have to feel very/pretty loved to fool around with some piece of technology on my break. This lead to father revelation. My self-valuation is bound up very much in my ability to be "useful" (and remember the questions of perception, seen as useful, known to be useful, etc…). Lately the car has had some bad problems. The car problems are bad enough to interfere with my ability to attend work. In fact its pretty clear that the car is unsafe, and that only my extra skills as a driver make it at all useable. So it’s a big frustration to drive as well. When I arrived for the shift B and R saw me stumbling to park the car… when we talked moments later I was very defensive and upset… Later I was able to identify /admit that the car being so bad is a profound shame to me. "I feel like there is excrement on my face or hair because of the condition of the car."

The church owes a Yes/No answer to David Rentz
My friend is being abused. When I met Dave he was a student at Master’s college. As I recall he was studying in the Biblical counseling department. When we met for the second time He was working to start a para-church ministry, in fact it maybe was already going. Now as time has passed it has been clear enough that all was not well with Dave. However he continues to do some of the most difficult and specialized evangelism I can imagine. Dave combines the skills of a biblical scholar with the necessary tactics of a law enforcement officer. And that is only when he is working with the young people. When Dave deals with churches, organizations, and the civil authorities he has to have the poise and skills of a seasoned diplomat and understand his audiences mentality often better than they understand themselves. All of this to his credit Dave continues to receive neglect and abuse. It is apparent that nobody has examined his definition, goals, shall we say philosophy of ministry? People call them selves’ leaders but they don’t know who this guy is or what he is doing. In fact as spiritually fruitful as he is ultimately going to be, nobody wants his techniques or knowledge to be preserved. In fact the hippy-dippy [cuss word] local evangelicals will happily see him destroyed long before they will lift a finger to reach the crowd that he is deeply entrenched in evangelizing.

In my own life I’m reminded of Proverbs 30:33 "…the churning of milk produces butter, and the wringing of the nose produces blood, so the forcing of wrath produces strife…" we claim we love God but we really hate Him.

This is not to say that I have no concerns about the problems. To his credit David makes sure to honor the local assembly, and is a member there. As it turns out my doubts overlap a particularly bad area of negligence in the local church. Talking with Him by phone on more than one occasion I’ve come to wonder if my friend has some flaws in his ecclesiastical perspective. He is willing to submit to the local church. I think that from the very beginning he has tried to have his ministry properly attached to a church. But in the end the church fails to give an honest answer. Over time this has not produced love and respect for the gathered saints… not to say it has yielded disrespect rather the situation is more like malnutrition.

Dave constantly has to run his legs off seeking support, opportunities etc. No to be sure to live is Christ and to die is gain, but this guy is clearly receiving the ‘off scouring’ treatment. I’m unable to support financially and so I try to give him technical assists from time to time, but many of his technology problems are again money related, and the ones that aren’t are trivial. That nobody wants to see him or his ministry in decent housing is a gross sham, bordering on a crime and it disgusts me. The people who actually help him with car problems are not the churches but the civil servants (though some civil servants are Christians). Now the church I’m thinking of does support him financially, but it is not a righteous God honoring arrangement. The way his is supported is the standard bucket brigade system where he has to contact and repeatedly ask for support, and then go in person to pickup whatever there is of it. And apparently this is believed by the local church to be an acceptably biblical arrangement when done in perpetuity. It seems to me that any missionaries who had to do that would quickly find a different source of support. But Dave doesn’t have much of a choice in this regard and so he lives with it, never mind the destructive consequences.

My simple supposition regarding the circumstances is something Jesus said in his earthly ministry. "let your yes be yes and your no be no." The idea is like this if you disagree with another Christian, maybe you think he’s sinning, or you think she teaches error of doctrine… maybe the difficulty is something more ordinary like you find the persons manner of dress or patterns of speech insulting. Whatever the case if you object in some way, but you give approval to the person anyhow you are telling a lie. (Not withstanding the principle of choosing ones battles, for a season) Your brother or sister goes on in sin and/or failure and you fail to love your neighbor as yourself.

But the problem is worse than that. If this were two Christian neighbors or people from different backgrounds (a Jew and a gentile might pass as an example) this would be a yes and no type of problem. But rather this is a shepherding failure, or worse a proselytizing nightmare.

Understand that Gods love seeks the best for and of its object. And Here is my friend in actual submission to his church, in warped modernist terms he is "a member." I imagine the true biblical definition may turn out to be a great deal more holistic. So sad to say the leadership at this church sits on the fence. Maybe we will support you maybe we won’t… What honor and respect this conveys to my friend I don’t know. What it tells of how the Church feels about his ministry demographic is easily obvious to the uninitiated observer.

But this "perhaps-maybe" posture does something else to the person who lives under it. What that conditional footing does to those under it is far more destructive. In the end it divides the individuals interests and assaults-destroys personal integrity. In a white-lab-coat sterile world, we could be clinical about this and say, well here’s a pill to help with the problem. But what we have here is not like that, it is religion at its core. (There are two kinds, true and false, good and bad religion, just so you can know I read the Bible)

The scriptures do not leave the church or the leadership in the church the option of not teaching and non-confrontation. In the end by forcing a child of God to curry favor you become guilty turning him or her into a false teacher, and a practitioner of works religion. The teaching is a bare minimum in fact. What we see in the in the New Testament is a much richer fellowship. Ideas like "having all things in common" come to mind.

But no my friend has to beg for the next house, meal, automobile. And for the church’s part, they withhold their true answer. No body tells him what kind of circumcision he would have to undergo. In the end this treatment will produce a false teacher. And whom will be to blame?

For my part I am happy God sees all things.

Ok my friend (coworker) and I talked a lot this evening, and looking back - in retrospect I see some things pretty clearly... Let me take back or at least reduce my adamant resistance/objections to the idea of my advancing to some apparently better/desirable role, function, work, life.... etc.
Never the less, this thing is so difficult! "I" statements usually don't solve anything, but let me talk about my favorite subject for a bit... This whole thing has been utterly humiliating, for multiple years... if just killing my pride would do the job that'd be great but I need to read my bible, and a million other things so my being forced to fend off harassment is utterly obstructive to whatever the goal is...
So if you don't want me to constantly flee and resist there are some things that you probably need to abandon no matter how appealing they seem to be... other wise get used to my saying how I'd rather be euthanized or turn to violence... I'd probably need to read CJ Mhny's book 50 times just to barely get my feet under me, and while I try to make ends meet, its never going to happen...