Listening Fail

I'm finding out why it's a good thing I don't have a working television and cable to supply it.

Because I can get programs I like on the Internet, and that's just as bad. Or worse.

Especially if you can get episodes on continuous stream.

Ouch.

So, I admit it.  I've found someone on YouTube who posts back episodes of What Not to Wear and Say Yes to the Dress.  What a guilty, addictive pleasure.  The former can be helpful in helping me shop sales, but as for the latter?  I've never tried on or needed a wedding dress, I don't foresee ever needing one (though it would be a nice surprise out of life, yes?); nor do I have any daughters or granddaughters who might take me wedding gown shopping with them.

Still, I watch.  Let's say it satisfies the frustrated fashion designer in me-- after all, that's what I wanted to be all through high school.  And sometimes the show gives food for thought-- in a not necessarily digestible or comfortable way.

Take the Season 1 episodes I've seen lately.  It's just like a TV show producer to glom onto and follow around the most interesting consultants, the ones with the most personality or those who'll strike the most sparks.  So in Season 1, they latched onto a newbie consultant named C--, whose combination of cluelessness, egomania, and crappy selling skills has the YouTube commenters wide-eyed with wonder.

I could tell she was headed for trouble in her first appearance, when a bride told her she wanted to see "Greek goddess" gowns and instead of fetching some, C-- basically told the bride (though in not so many words) she was stupid for asking, didn't she know that style made everyone look fat?  I was sure that when the show was broadcast, she'd be mortified to see herself and want to correct her behavior.  But as the episodes go on you see her committing error after correctable error.  Couldn't she have asked to see the footage taken of the successful sellers?  But you glean that she wouldn't be interested, because she continually tells the camera that she thinks she's doing just fine, there's no room for her to improve, nobody sells that many dresses anyway, etc., etc.

The Kleinfeld's management gives her chance after chance, and to her face and to each other they say, "C-- doesn't listen."

Oh, that.  That's a song I know well.  And from bitter experience, I well know the uselessness of vague job review terms like "X doesn't listen."


For C-- really thinks she is listening--according to her own definition of the term.  Trouble is, it's not her definition that was going to rule.  But if her supervisors really want to give her a chance to succeed, . can't they see she doesn't or can't catch what they're trying to convey, that she's interpreting it entirely differently than they mean it?

"You doesn't listen" in this Say Yes to the Dress situation could have meant

• "We don't want you just to hear our words and understand them, we expect you to do what we say."  I.e., "to listen" means "to obey."
• "You need to learn from management and the other consultants, and not figure a rookie like you has it all down."
• "Listening to the brides does not mean making common cause with them over against the store.  It reduces their confidence in the establishment and in you."
• "When management politely suggests something be done, the politeness is social grease, and we really mean, do it."
• "You keep up such a flow of talk you can't take in anything else."
• "When the brides say they want to try something or other, you're sure you know better and bring them something else instead."
• "You don't know to shut up long enough to let the brides' instincts about the Perfect Dress take over and make the sale for you."

And so on.  True, C-- was so colossally full of herself I guess it would have done no good had management spelled it out for her.  She deserved to get canned.  But for the rest of us poor working fools out there just struggling to do our best, please, HR, be a bit more specific.  Define your terms!

When I was hit with "She doesn't listen," I knew it meant "she doesn't obey."   In the circumstances I couldn't acquiesce and they had no right to ask me to do so-- though they did have the power to punish me for it, however unfairly or illegally.  But that aside, last night I reflected that I don't listen as I should.  I tend to talk too damn much.  Lord, help me to be quiet in myself and let the other person's thoughts and feelings and ideas flow!  For unlike C-- on Say Yes to the Dress, I have it in me to see myself and be very, very mortified.

Zombie Wars

I've often wondered why people have such an instinctual dread of cancer. It can't be simply because up till recent times it was pretty much always fatal. Tuberculosis, for instance, was just as much a death sentence and people didn't go around talking about it in whispers. My grandfather's first wife died in her 20s of consumption and from their letters I know they both knew she was doomed even before they got engaged. Everyone around her knew she had TB. Everyone was open about it; it was a fact of her life until she had no life left.

And I don't think cancer's basic horror is that it involves your own body turning traitor on you. Auto-immune diseases do that, too. So do infections. I remember a line from a Bill Cosby routine where he's recreating the scene when his mother took him to the doctor to see about getting his tonsils taken out. Doc says something like, "Kid, your tonsils are like sentries that're supposed to keep the bad stuff out. But in your case, they're fighting for the other side."

True, there is a mystery to cancer in that its cause is often so hard to trace. Otherwise perfectly healthy people (like me!) can pop up with it. It's not like you catch it from Aunt Martha at the family reunion-- in all due respect to an old lady I heard of, who kept the photo of a family member who'd died of melanoma securely wrapped in plastic, "Because it might be contagious."

But still, I don't think that's the font of the primal fear of cancer. I think it has to do with our dread and loathing of zombies.

Yes, zombies. Ever notice how our society's sick fascination with those monsters has grown along with our rising cancer statistics?

Anyway, I'm no expert on the Undead, but cancer cells and zombies have a lot in common. Both are mindless. Both have no "purpose" but to devour and assimilate the living. Both replicate themselves in fast and horrendous ways. Neither contribute to the good of the body (politic), but rather, feed on it and destroy it. And worst of all, both zombies and cancer cells are frighteningly difficult to kill.

Speaking seriously on cancer, I read someplace recently that that's what makes cancer, cancer. Ordinary helpful healthy body cells do their jobs then die off and are replaced. Cancer cells have mutated so they don't know it's time for them to die. They're so biologically brain dead, they don't even know they're damaging the body they infest from the word Go.

The idea of something mindless and destructive and horrendously hard to kill growing in you and taking over your system is inherently creepy. No wonder people have traditionally feared cancer and not wanted to mention its name. You don't want it to be true, and at the same time, you don't dare ignore it, unless you want your innards to be the physiological equivalent of those popular zombie-apocalypse films.

We are told on Very Good Authority (Wikipedia, right?) that the only way to destroy a zombie is by going after its brains before it goes after yours. Fighting cancer, we have a few more weapons, which is good, because this battle is real.

And I, tomorrow I'm engaging in front number two in my own zombie wars. We had the cutting-out campaign in late April; in the morning we begin the chemical warfare. I expect to be a bit battered before it's over this September: you have to expect to take a few hits when you're combatting the Undead. But fight I shall, and by God and St. George*, I expect to win.
________________________
*You'd think I'd invoke St. David, wouldn't you, if I'm going to invoke a saint at all. But St. David isn't known for his military prowess, and St. George is. Besides (should my fellow-Reformed object), I'm being more literary than religious. 'k?

Swept Away

Aye, I have given myself up to the o'erwhelming tide and joined Facebook.

I held out until this past Thursday, when, at the board meeting of a group I'm up to my neck in, it was confirmed that our electronic newsletter was going to be abolished in favor of our group's Facebook presence.

The printed newsletter will still come out, but that's quarterly, only.

So I signed up on Friday, and blew a lot of yesterday and much of today adding my real-world friends as Facebook friends.

And doing up my profile, photos, and so on and so forth.

I'd been reluctant to join, because there you are, exposed for the world to see. I mean, what if I said or posted something awkward and a pastoral search committee saw it?

But I suppose the question answers itself. It'd be easy, sitting alone at my computer in the serene privacy of my study, to think whatever I post on Facebook (or my blogs, for that matter), is a private communication.

Not hardly. Facebook is not my diary, a phone call to a friend, or even a personal letter or email. What goes there is for all the world to see. And if I have to be careful and create a persona that I'm willing to submit for public inspection, so be it. We're not totally, wholly, marvellously, abysmally "ourselves" to anybody but God.

It Will Be Interesting to See

. . . How I do for ten days to a fortnight without a computer.

Late last month, I established with the HP phone tech support people that my CD/DVD drive is toast. They sent out a guy to put in a new one, but alas! my processor is one of those skinny Slimline models without a lot of maneuvering room, and somehow the cable between the CD drive and the motherboard was broken. The only way for me to get it fixed is to send it to the factory repair facility in Indiana.

It was still under warranty-- just-- when this happened, so that's all right. HP has sent me a prepaid box to send the processor to them in. I waited two weeks while Carbonite backed up my data-- the repairs shouldn't affect the harddrive, but you never know. I've dealt with my online banking through the end of the month. I've taken care of some volunteer work that I needed the computer for. And tomorrow I'm going to pack it up and send it away.

I'll try to get over to the public library from time to time to check my email. Ideally. No guarantees of regularity. Maybe I'll post a line or two on my blogs, sans photos.

Otherwise, I'm going to party-- I mean, function-- like it's 1992. That's the last year I had no word processor or computer. In the coming days when I am not sitting in front of the monitor writing things or tarting up my blog entries with pictures and links or looking up interesting facts on the Internet (like this one I came across last night. Hey, I was in the middle of that and never realized the phenomenon had such a distinctive name!), how will I occupy my time?

Will I write letters by hand, or will I be stymied because most of my friends' addresses are on my computer?

Will I work like a Trojan on the house remodelling, or will I listen to what they told me at the chiropractor's office, that I'd exacerbate my accident injury if I do that?

Since I won't be able to download them, will I control myself as to taking digital pictures, or will I max out all my storage cards and buy more?

Will I build my plant-starting frame and get some seeds in against the Spring? Will I get some old sewing projects done, or will they continue to sit where they are?

Will I read the important books I ought to be reading, or will I let my trips to the library to check my e-mail give me the excuse to check out and read mystery novels and other frivolity?

One thing I'm pretty sure will happen, I won't be drying out my eyes staring at the screen till all hours of the night.

I've scheduled some installments of "My Cut-Rate Grand Tour" for publication in the interim. Comments always appreciated, even if I may not respond to them very quickly.

But it's been a long time since I've been computerless. I truly will be intrigued to observe how I take it. Will I suffer IT withdrawal, or will I experience almost a sense of back-to-the-simple-life freedom?

We shall see!

Teachability

It's time for Season 5 of Hell's Kitchen, and not having a cable connection I watch it on Hulu.com.

I watched the first two episodes the other night, and it struck me how Chef Ramsay and Colleen, the 41-year-old cooking school instructor from Nebraska, started butting heads from the very start.

It reached an early low in Episode 2, when he accused her of stealing from her students, he considered her to be such a bad cook.

On first exposure, this seemed over the top and unfair. And possibly dangerous, as I seriously doubt she's going to last on the show much longer, and after talk like this from Gordon Ramsay, who will want to take cooking lessons from her? What if she sues for deprivation of livelihood?

But thinking about it, maybe she's asking for it. Her attitude seems to be that she's what's needed to be a chef in the new restaurant in Atlantic City, right now, just as she is. That her appearance on Hell's Kitchen is all and only about revealing that marvellous reality to Chef Ramsay and the world. She doesn't seem interested in learning anything; in fact, she feels she can teach him a thing or two. Like, his spaghetti sauce recipe can really be improved by adding mascarpone cheese, oh, yeah, and if she mis-cooks a simple salmon filet or uses a dirty pan because she's overlooked five clean ones not three feet away from her, that's not her fault. She has an excuse for everything and her failure in basic kitchen practice shouldn't matter.

I have to contrast her with last year's winner, Christina from St. Louis. What stood out to me about Christina was the way she was always observing and learning. Even during the rewards and the day-off trips, she was always looking, listening, questioning, analyzing, and gathering new information about fine food and its preparation.

This post really isn't about Colleen of Nebraska or Christina of St. Louis. It's about job seekers like me who have to consider whether we're holding ourselves back by a perceived or real lack of teachability. It's about anybody who makes a job opportunity all about themselves instead of what they can offer to the organization. It's also about the difficult balance between the need to be recognized for one's years of experience and the humility required when starting over in a new field or on a different level.

I haven't figured out yet what the precise application of the story is for me. But I can't help thinking about it. Maybe I'm feeling uncomfortable because I've sometimes come off like a know-it-all like Colleen. Maybe I'm afraid, on the other hand, that seeming too teachable will mean denying my true abilities and confine me to the lowest rung of any given ladder.

But maybe this is an object lesson in knowing myself and my own capabilities, in distinguishing between self-confidence that's justified and the kind that's just a hollow shell. Being teachable doesn't exclude being competent. And high pressure and heat will sort out true competence from sham posturing-- even if you're not competing in Hell's Kitchen.

Buck Up

I usually wake in the morning to a news-talk station. But it hasn't been anything worth waking up to lately. If it isn't all about how the stock market is down and the world economy's in the tank, it's about how the stock market is up and that means in another day or so it'll be really down, putting the economy even deeper in the tank.

Some commentators seem to take a sordid pleasure in exclaiming for two hours straight how This Is Just a Taste of It and It'll Get Unimaginably Worse Regardless of Who's Elected President, etc., etc., etc.

How incredibly, uselessly depressing. What I'm not hearing is what any of us can do about it. Listening to these guys, nothing. We're all going to hell in a handbasket and they won't even let us enjoy the slide.

This has had an odd, counterintuitive effect on me.

I've not been feeling too lively for quite awhile, not having a proper job and surrounded with house-renovation mess that will get a lot messier before it gets better. But with things in the general culture being the way they are, I've decided to buck up.

Why? Because since all these temporal props are being kicked out from under all of us, I'm getting it through my thick head to rely on the only solid foundation there is or ever has been, which is almighty God revealed in His Son Jesus Christ.

Did Jesus ever promise His followers would always be prosperous and well-fed? No. Did He ever swear we'd always have plenty in the bank and our own roof over our heads? No. Did He ever covenant with us that we'd die in our beds of peaceful old age? No, again.

But He did promise that where He is, there His servants would be. He said that we should be of good courage, for He has overcome the world. He said we should lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, that will never wear out or rot or decay. He said all authority in heaven and on earth is given to Him, and He is with us to the end of the age.

If Jesus had been only a man, those promises wouldn't mean beans. But given that He's the Son of God, with all the perquisites and endowments that that implies, His mere presence with us gives us more than the most healthy economy ever could, and that's even before you tally in all the other blessings of heaven and eternal life.

So I've decided to get my vision straight and buck up. I don't say Jesus is gonna get me a job, but letting Him give me perspective will get me further towards that goal. And maybe things will get as bad as the radio pundits say. Maybe. But we humans can't screw things up so badly as to keep God from bringing good out of it.

And in the meantime, I'm not messing with things I can't help. My radio alarm now set to the classical station.

Are We Smiling Yet?

Sandy at Curly's Corner invited me to come round to her place and pick up this cute award, which came to her by way of her good blogging friend Carol at Charli and Me. Sandy's passing it out to everyone on her blog roll as well as anyone who stops by to read her blog. Thank you so much, Sandy!

By their example and in the spirit of their kindness, I'm also passing this lovely little award on to everyone who stops by to read my blog as well as those already on my Favorites list. Every blog I visit can give me reason to smile . . . in some way or other . . . so feel free to pick this up for yourself and pass it along.

But of course there is one tiny little catch..... The tag that goes along with the award. The tag is this: Name five songs that you are embarrassed to sing.

. . . Five songs I'm embarrassed to sing. Hoo-boy! If my pipes and my wind are working, I'm not exactly embarrassed to sing anything . . . that is, if it's actually singable and it won't scandalize the parish (when I've got a parish) . . .

But then, there are those songs I'm embarrassed to sing, where the scandal comes because I am embarrassed to sing them. Here, then, is my own Hall of Shame:

1) In the Garden. Yes, I'm aware that a lot of very nice people get a lot of comfort out of this hymn. Maybe that's you (are you smiling yet?). A lot of people also get a lot of comfort out of Sugar Frosted Flakes. The perpetrator of this religious ditty, C. Austin Miles, claims he was inspired by the story of Mary Magdalene coming to the empty tomb of Christ the first Easter morning. If so, his Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth were a pair that would warm the cockles of Dan Brown's heart. A prettier lovers' tryst you never stumbled upon. Gnostic, sentimental, unbiblical. And I'm supposed to sing this? Feh!

In the same vein is

2) He Lives. "You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart!" No, you poor creature, you know He lives because the Holy Spirit has revealed that fact to you in the Holy Scriptures! Your feelings will tell you all sorts of lies. Go through some horrible tragedy, and your heart will tell you God has abandoned you, even though He's right with you all along. Feelings are great, if they fit the facts. But even if they don't, the truth of what God did in Jesus Christ keeps on going and you can grab hold of it by faith. That's how I know He lives. That's a song worth singing, not a poor pitiful piece of pietistic poetry set to a circus tune.

(So are we smiling yet?)

3) Here I Am, Lord. The basic idea of this hymn is fine. It's about responding to God's call to serve Him in the world. It's used a lot for ordination and commitment services, and appropriately, too. But there's this phrase in the chorus: "Is it I, Lord?" I'm sorry, but without fail that reminds me of what Judas said to Jesus just before he betrayed Him. And what's up with this "I will go, Lord, if You lead me"? Am I supposed to proclaim that God might call someone to do His will, then carelessly forget to guide that person into how and when and where? I sing that, and I feel like I'm putting conditions on my obedience. Before God, that's something I'm embarrassed to do.

4) Any modern "praise" chorus where you could excise the word "Jesus" or "Lord" and put in "Baby" instead, and it wouldn't make a dime's worth of difference. See my DaVinci Code reference under Embarrassing Song No. 1. Especially when I have to stand there for ten minutes singing the same damn words over and over twenty times. Are the Catholics right about Purgatory? That's where these perpetrations make me feel I am. Embarrassing.

5) Any good traditional hymn that's been bowlderized and politically-corrected by modern hymnbook editors, a la the efforts of the committee that patched together the 1990 Presbyterian Hymnal. Witness what was done to Be Thou My Vision, one of my favorites. As a woman, I was never offended by "Thou my great Father, I Thy true son." Give me credit for some sense: It's about relationship, not sex or gender. Never mind! That line is out, out, out! Ditto the parts about "High King of heaven." That title for God brought us the rich Irishness of the hymn, with its echoes of all the petty chieftains pledging fealty to the high king at Tara, now signifying the desires and demands of our lives bowing the knee to Christ as universal Sovereign. That's gone, people! We don't want to offend anybody with any reminders that there might be a hierarchy in creation, with the uncreated Lord at the top, oh, no! I'm surprised the wise editors left in the part about "Ruler of all" at the end. But I guess they knew they had to draw the line somewhere, and they wanted a ruler to draw it with.

This version embarrasses me so much, I won't program this hymn without putting the unaltered version in as an insert in the bulletin. Preferably with the third verse that's always excised from American hymnals:

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;

be thou my whole armor, be thou my true might;

be thou my soul's shelter, be thou my strong tower:

O raise thou me heavenward, great Power of my power.

That's something I'll never be embarrassed to sing.

But O, Sandy! Are you embarrassed you passed this award on to me? Are we still smiling?

Church Nightmares?

As if I hadn't enough to keep me busy, I've become a Gordon Ramsay junkie. I don't have cable TV, but I managed to catch every episode of Hell's Kitchen Season 4 on Hulu.com. And when I get time, I watch episodes of Kitchen Nightmares (UK version, of course) on YouTube.

For the uninitiated, Gordon Ramsay is a world-class, Scottish-born, f-bomb-dropping chef with twelve Michelin stars and millions of dollars per year in revenue from his various restaurants worldwide. On Kitchen Nightmares, he spends a week at some tanking restaurant somewhere and, at little or no cost to the establishment (as I understand it), works with might, main, and brain to pull them out of the soup.

Time and again, the featured restaurant is going down because the owners/head chefs have some fixed idea of what their eatery should be like, but it bears no relation to what they can actually cook and serve, what ingredients are affordable and available, or what the potential customers actually like and want. And Chef Ramsay's fix generally is, "Find out what you can do and do it attractively and well. Let your customers know what you have now that you have your act together. Stop trying to attract the type of customers who aren't out there. Stop trying to be too clever-- keep it simple and uncomplicated. And while you're at it, clean out your f*cking [sorry, wouldn't be GR without the f-word at least once] deep-freeze and kitchen!!"

But O! the nightmare! It never fails: The owners/chefs seldom listen to Ramsay. Often they sabotage what he's trying to do. They want to go on doing exactly what's got them in the mess in the first place. But O, Chef Gordon, save us! Pull our chestnuts out of the fire!!

Last Sunday, I couldn't help but think of Gordon Ramsay and Kitchen Nightmares. I was being interviewed for an Interim Pastor position at a church over in an adjacent county. And practically the first thing I heard from the interviewing committee was how wonderful it used to be with them back in the 1980s, when their youth group was bursting the church at the seams. Practically the first question I got was how good was I at relating to youth.

But do they have any teenagers among the church membership right now? Apparently very few. Are there gangs and gangs of unchurched teenagers in the church's catchment area right now? Apparently they have no idea.

Is it a good thing to be a church with a lot of families with well-involved teenaged kids? Oh, certainly, yes. But is that where this church is now? No. Are families with teenagers the type of people who are living in that area, spiritually starving for the good news of Jesus Christ? What if they're not?

But they want to hire an interim pastor who can come in for a year and miraculously revive their image of themselves as the church with all the kids. Never mind the unchurched people of whatever age who are actually there in the neighborhood and need to be ministered to. Never mind that the talents and gifts of the people of the church might go better to serve a totally different demographic. We have our image of what we want to be, and you'd better buy into it, Pastor, whether it's realistic or not!!!

I told them, yes, I'm pretty good at working with kids--if I'm allowed to be an adult and a mentor and not a superannuated ersatz-teenager buddy. But maybe, I suggested, what if the Holy Spirit just might be leading them to other fields of ministry that better fit who they are now . . . ???

I felt like Gordon Ramsay telling the owner of a pub in Lancashire to knock it off with the exotic Asian stuff out of mixes and try serving up good fresh honest pub grub for a change.

I can't take the Kitchen Nightmares analogy too far: There's one fixed item on any church's menu that can not and must not change, whether the public thinks they want it or not: Jesus Christ crucified for our sins and risen for our life. But how the church lives out that good news in 2008 may not be just as it was in 1985!

I wouldn't be surprised if they don't hire me. They also want their new IP to generate a lot of new programs, and I told them that programs have to follow needs, and be run by the members. And they're hoping their new Interim Pastor will move into the manse. No, not feasible. Not for a one-year contract. Alas! that's another dream of theirs I've destroyed.

But I can't rule them out myself. This dream-on attitude is endemic with most struggling mainline churches. It'd be the same anywhere else!

If I were to be taken on at this church, I'd have it easier than Gordon Ramsay in one way-- I'd have a year to redd up the place, where he only has a week. But it'd be a lot harder, too-- I can't overawe anybody with the ecclesiastical equivalent of twelve Michelin stars . . . and unlike Chef Ramsay, I am not permitted to cuss.