Confirmed or Condemned?
Most scenes I would frame in this space as I come up for air to record the week's strongest impressions for myself and you, my faithful reader, are clinically well lit. There is no subtlety or sinistery behind the computer screen telling me whether I'm qualified, or not, for the latest job opening. Electronic entertainment dances across my retina with a deliberately distracting series of exploding colors. Lines of text march beneath my book lamp, inspected for inclusion in my OneNote file that stands in for what my readers or hearers may mistakenly think is a good memory.
Scenes can make a vivid impression, though, even in the dark. The combustion between smoldering rage at one end of the room and the projection of a a colorful cartoon character at the other was enlightening enough. Such was the unlikely, and unintended, combination from Tuesday's summons to the unemployment office. When those two components collided, sound stood in for light. The bureaucratic brotherhood and sisterhood among which I numbered myself up until six weeks ago was going through its paces, and putting us through the same. The instigating cartoon character played his part, projected on a screen in his loud beach attire. Even with his laptop, the bureaucrat reminded us, he was on vacation and so was not available for work. He should not file for unemployment benefits this week.
"You are insulting us. You think this is funny," projected a voice that was both enforcing calm and choking back sobs. The pained facial expression was readable even in the dark, even from three rows behind. "You are treating us like we don't want to work."
Let there be light. And there was light. "My name," introduced the live presenting expert with the tough PowerPoint act to follow, "is Damian Birkel, and I've been unemployed four times." That chased the shadows from the room more quickly than the fluorescent bulbs now humming above. Driving out any darkness that remained in the room where the Once Chosen had to obediently appear now that we were Unchosen, Mr. Birkel massaged four words as an ointment into life's wounds in a way that this lover of compounded clauses could learn from. "I – AM – WITH – YOU."
This was a man on a mission, literally, and he proved it. Mr. Birkel explained that during his last enforced hiatus from work, he made a promise to God. He promised that when he returned to work, he would help other professionals in transition, and he has. He heads a group under that name that meets weekly, and his sense of mission is so compelling that others who, like him, have returned to work tend to come back to the group in order to inspire. Knowing how easy it is for the wounded to feel like the exception to any assurances, Damian followed his four-word artillery barrage against our sense of estrangement with his personal cell phone number. "In case you feel stuck."
All of this could have been well rehearsed and begrudgingly well regarded by this Christian and this employment professional, or former employment professional. Damian, however, quickly separated his mission from what I could have denigrated as his shtick. He offered the number, but he also really saw the individuals to whom he offered it. The entire length of the room separated the mouth offering the number and these hands which did not move to write it down. Rather than debate the impact of my possible indifference versus my evident cerebral palsy, he stopped. He crossed the room. He wrote the number down as a one-to-one gesture of individual affirmation focused on others versus efficiency focused on self. If I was stuck, I was now unstuck.
The working world doesn't know I'm unstuck yet. Neither does my resume or my bank account. The working world wasn't ruffled by an outburst from me like the one from my classmate in such pain, but our vulnerable identity is not too different. Bureaucracy is still in my blood, as I spent more than 20 years as an active part of it. The fact that I didn't rage against the machine didn't confirm any greater sense of certainty within. Her unease apart from her work role translated into protest. Mine translated into my first musing in decades on whether or not I needed permission to go to the bathroom. I gnawed on the rarest of doubts as to whether my request for assistance in filling out a form by hand because of my disability would be interpreted as a malcontent's desire to be the exception to every rule.
How many pillars of our sense of self have to be shaken before we start to question, before a cartoon character, cloudy day, a careless remark can set off rage within, or rage without? We are closer, I suspect, to shedding the practiced comportment of composure than we would like others to believe. We are the Philippian jailer of Acts 16:27, one turn of events away from desperation for any mooring we can find. But, just as one of life's turns can send us reeling, one gesture can affirm us, even with many of life's presenting problems left to be solved. For every offending cartoon character, for every reminder of the Truth of Luke 11:46, my verse for the next day, that there are many who will burden us, similarly, one act of kindness can also have a compounding impact. If we would be misdirected by 1° and blown off course over time by the smallest of indignities, just so, God's glory and the intricacies of His sovereign plan can break through like one of the sun's rays defying a building storm. How much would our perspective change if we turned the varied weaponry of the enemy of our soul against him? If he can "prove" the absence of the Father's favor in the smallest of life's slights, can we not present a counter argument of at least equal weight in every meal He provides and every confirmation that His Son shines on the evil and the good?
Scenes can make a vivid impression, though, even in the dark. The combustion between smoldering rage at one end of the room and the projection of a a colorful cartoon character at the other was enlightening enough. Such was the unlikely, and unintended, combination from Tuesday's summons to the unemployment office. When those two components collided, sound stood in for light. The bureaucratic brotherhood and sisterhood among which I numbered myself up until six weeks ago was going through its paces, and putting us through the same. The instigating cartoon character played his part, projected on a screen in his loud beach attire. Even with his laptop, the bureaucrat reminded us, he was on vacation and so was not available for work. He should not file for unemployment benefits this week.
"You are insulting us. You think this is funny," projected a voice that was both enforcing calm and choking back sobs. The pained facial expression was readable even in the dark, even from three rows behind. "You are treating us like we don't want to work."
Let there be light. And there was light. "My name," introduced the live presenting expert with the tough PowerPoint act to follow, "is Damian Birkel, and I've been unemployed four times." That chased the shadows from the room more quickly than the fluorescent bulbs now humming above. Driving out any darkness that remained in the room where the Once Chosen had to obediently appear now that we were Unchosen, Mr. Birkel massaged four words as an ointment into life's wounds in a way that this lover of compounded clauses could learn from. "I – AM – WITH – YOU."
This was a man on a mission, literally, and he proved it. Mr. Birkel explained that during his last enforced hiatus from work, he made a promise to God. He promised that when he returned to work, he would help other professionals in transition, and he has. He heads a group under that name that meets weekly, and his sense of mission is so compelling that others who, like him, have returned to work tend to come back to the group in order to inspire. Knowing how easy it is for the wounded to feel like the exception to any assurances, Damian followed his four-word artillery barrage against our sense of estrangement with his personal cell phone number. "In case you feel stuck."
All of this could have been well rehearsed and begrudgingly well regarded by this Christian and this employment professional, or former employment professional. Damian, however, quickly separated his mission from what I could have denigrated as his shtick. He offered the number, but he also really saw the individuals to whom he offered it. The entire length of the room separated the mouth offering the number and these hands which did not move to write it down. Rather than debate the impact of my possible indifference versus my evident cerebral palsy, he stopped. He crossed the room. He wrote the number down as a one-to-one gesture of individual affirmation focused on others versus efficiency focused on self. If I was stuck, I was now unstuck.
The working world doesn't know I'm unstuck yet. Neither does my resume or my bank account. The working world wasn't ruffled by an outburst from me like the one from my classmate in such pain, but our vulnerable identity is not too different. Bureaucracy is still in my blood, as I spent more than 20 years as an active part of it. The fact that I didn't rage against the machine didn't confirm any greater sense of certainty within. Her unease apart from her work role translated into protest. Mine translated into my first musing in decades on whether or not I needed permission to go to the bathroom. I gnawed on the rarest of doubts as to whether my request for assistance in filling out a form by hand because of my disability would be interpreted as a malcontent's desire to be the exception to every rule.
How many pillars of our sense of self have to be shaken before we start to question, before a cartoon character, cloudy day, a careless remark can set off rage within, or rage without? We are closer, I suspect, to shedding the practiced comportment of composure than we would like others to believe. We are the Philippian jailer of Acts 16:27, one turn of events away from desperation for any mooring we can find. But, just as one of life's turns can send us reeling, one gesture can affirm us, even with many of life's presenting problems left to be solved. For every offending cartoon character, for every reminder of the Truth of Luke 11:46, my verse for the next day, that there are many who will burden us, similarly, one act of kindness can also have a compounding impact. If we would be misdirected by 1° and blown off course over time by the smallest of indignities, just so, God's glory and the intricacies of His sovereign plan can break through like one of the sun's rays defying a building storm. How much would our perspective change if we turned the varied weaponry of the enemy of our soul against him? If he can "prove" the absence of the Father's favor in the smallest of life's slights, can we not present a counter argument of at least equal weight in every meal He provides and every confirmation that His Son shines on the evil and the good?
Unstuck, indeed.
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