Friday, November 05, 2004

Friday, November 05, 2004

Heaven and Hell

*I've had complaints about a lack of updates. Here's my week. If you read this all the way through you're either a really good friend, a really stupid good friend or a really bored stupid good friend. Oh yeah, and if you don't pass this along to 87 people in the next hour something bad is probably going to happen to you. (grin)*

I've long feared that my concept of Heaven was erroneous. It seems I too often view Heaven as an escape from my earthly troubles rather than a place where the believers of history gather to offer praise to their Creator. On one hand I feel selfish, like I'm using my salvation instead of entering into deeper communion with God, but on the other hand I can't imagine how the heck we're going to praise God through eternity (which goes on and on and on...if you've never really thought about that.) Heaven's been on my mind a lot this week. [At this point, if you don't want to hear about the definition of "hellacious" then you should probably think back to your own crappy situations from life, apply the anticipation of Heaven to that thought and skip to the last paragraph of this blog. I'd feel bad about writing this much and actually posting it, especially since it's got to be longer than Tim's last post, but this is really more for my own sanity than for entertainment value. Also, I'm not subscribing to the "God, why is it always me?" thought-process...I'm just working through my thoughts.]

While many people woke up on the right side of the bed Wednesday morning to find George W. Bush had basically won the 2004 presidential election, I didn't wake up on either side of the bed. Fighting sleep and wanting to watch the returns the night before, I somehow came under the delusion that if I laid down on the floor I wouldn't really be sleeping and it would still satisfy my need for rest. (shrug) Hours later I awoke on the floor of my living room feeling strangely rested and with time to spare to get to work.

A slow drizzle obnoxiously accompanied my drive to the office, but my spirits still remained fairly high. I passed by one of Dayton's "treasures": a man walking down the street wearing a garbage bag as a raincoat. A suppressed laugh tripped the corners of my mouth and coaxed out a smile. He had torn a hole through the bottom of the 50 gallon trash bag and two corners opposite each other in the sides for arm holes. He seemed content. I should have paid attention to this man...he knew what to expect. It was going to rain today and rain hard.

It had already been raining for two days, both literally and figuratively, but "how often does it rain a third day," I thought to myself. G.W.'s back in office and the world won't end for at least another four years, right? (I'll leave that comment for another time and another blog).

A temperamental woman I work with had finally turned in her resignation on Friday, ending months of grief and frustration, slander and hopefully my own personal issues of dealing with someone else's discontentment making me discontent. We have a rather intimate work setting in the editiorial department: myself, two other writers and our immediate boss, the editor. While she would really be leaving us in a lurch two weeks later, I was relieved that much of my job stress would be lacking as well. My other close co-worker had other thoughts over the weekend and early into Monday got in some hot water with upper management after trying to express her feelings about the job stress being laid on the staff in the absence of the resigned worker. Honestly, it looked as if I would soon be left alone in the department with the editor, a respected mentor and good friend. The problem is that he was struggling with his own issues: managing the issue of the resigned writer, upper management pressures concerning that and other ridiculous expectations, his family responsibilities as a father and his own upcoming major surgery that will keep him out of work for at least several weeks. Hence, the possibility exists that Matt will be THE editorial department faster than Donald Trump can say "Ya fyadd!".

The tension was too much for me, so I went to the back and talked to friends on the phone for the better part of an hour, fully expecting my staff to have shrunk from four to two individuals when I returned. The resigned I wouldn't really miss: she was just an inconvenience, the other was more complicated. I love working with her because we've known each other for years and I hated the thought of her leaving, but on another level her departure would spell further trouble for my position in the future. I entered back into the room to find that not only had neither been disciplined any further, but both, including the resigned, are actually staying and "everything is fine." Fine. Let's move on. I just want a figurative place to stand. "I'm just tired of this roller coaster," I remember saying.

Within an hour, the cancer that is the "formerly resigned" co-worker starts trying to sell lies to the other co-worker, and not simply small lies but slanderous things concerning my boss. Not wanting to make things worse (I was an idiot at this point) I said nothing. My very likeable co-worker was quite upset, both because she wasn't received very well with her earlier discussion and felt very "not valued" by the main employer. So Matt (ever the justifier) works to make things better between her and the immediate boss, and things seem better by the end of the day.

Tuesday was that weird day where no one really knows how to act around each other after a fight has taken place and simmered down. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I was sick and tired of dealing with emotions. There was more PMS hanging in the air than on a private flight full of nuns. I figured we all need that time to decompress and transition back into regularity. Not talking didn't help me any though. I realized that, if for nothing else, God may actually want me to get married so I can learn to better express my feelings. I hadn't felt that way since my sister was in the hospital for a month in September 2002: so many emotional up-and-downs that I didn't know how to feel, nor how to verbalize it. I watched the election and fell asleep on the floor. That leads to my drive to work Wednesday.

Everything seemed fine in the office until the formerly resigned quickly turned into the "leaving immediately." co-worker. After she had initiated a vindictive, mean-spirited discussion with my boss, and after my boss had left for the day for a doctor's appointment about his surgery and the rest of the week for other reasons, she turned in her second verbal resignation to me. I just stared at her and said okay, which I think made her angrier. I didn't really care, since far worse things were dangerously close to escaping from my lips. Oddly, she said she'd come back on Thursday to finish up some stuff but then she was leaving. An hour later she called to say she would stay through the week because she didn't want to leave us, already one boss down, in a tight spot, and then another hour later she walked in, slammed her office key down on the desk and proclaimed that she would never return. I didn't even say okay this time ...(and I felt good about it).

I sat at my desk for the better part of an hour, mulling over the possibilities for complete disaster in the next few days trying to put out a paper with two people, one of which had no clue that "we" were now two and not three. We gathered a game plan and psyched ourselves up, called the boss (who couldn't feel his leg at all after having a three-foot needle or something like that stuck in his hip) and gave him the good news. After a brief meeting, I felt decent about the rest of the week. The boss would stay an extra day and we would kick the paper out mainly on Thursday. Relieved that I wasn't going to be doing four people's jobs by myself, I invited a friend for dinner at the Heartland under the promise of footing the bill. Spending money always makes things better.

At dinner I felt the truth of the first part of Proverbs 27:6: "Wounds from a friend can be trusted..." And it sucked but it was good at the same time. I'm forever grateful for your concern and candidness. We need more friends that can live up to that proverb. I drove through a (literal) torrential downpour out to Blythe's Ferry where I figured I'd be alone and watched the rain pelt the Tennessee for awhile before heading home and crashing to sleep around 1 a.m., this time in bed.

I entered work this morning thinking that things couldn't get ANY worse. I should have remembered the "raincoat trashbag man." Our "resigned-formerly resigned-leaving immediately" co-worker had called to tell upper management a series of more incredible slanderous lies that, for a short time, I think were accepted as truth. It took a good part of the day to reverse the lies and implement truth amongst the three of us left in the office and the upper management, and it all ended with upper management telling me they don't like.......... the way I dress. Sometimes I think God is a stream of consciousness Creator in His techniques for our personal sanctification.

And (now that you've either read about my week or more likely recalled your own crappy time in life) all this brings me back to the issue of Heaven, and how currently I don't really think it's so bad to think of It in terms of an escape from earthly troubles. Somehow, singing "Hallelujah" over and over again until I get the phrases mixed up and I start singing "Halleyulah" (which actually happens on occasion for me) for all eternity doesn't sound so bad. I might even be able to handle "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever" forever. Perhaps this is selfish or spiritually immature or weak, but it's where I'm at right now and it seems to make perfect sense. I'm sure there are greater things to learn about our eternal home and I do desire to be enlightened, but right now the escape is pertinent, meaningful and very desired.

And perhaps God's not so disappointed in that.

Currently Playing The Man Who By Travis Why Does It Always Rain On Me? see related