Inspiration and Aspiration
About a week ago, my phone rang. Before losing my job on September 1, this would have prompted a desultory nod to anachronism. Everybody texts. Nobody calls. Must be a salesman, or a representative of the shrinking remnant believing they can eradicate all that is wrong with 2018 by refusing to conform with the most prominent vestige of its technological norms. No longer. My response to a ringing phone is Pavlovian, as eager as it was once dismissive. Somebody Wants Me. Perhaps a new life beckons.
This was an employer. As my pulse quickened, I fought physiology and forced my voice down an octave and into a slower pace. Impromptu interview subjects and those receiving a wake-up call from the few live humans performing such functions in a hotel anymore want to give every impression that we were expecting this call and prepared for it. Of course. I've been awake for hours, but thank you for your call. Of course. Yours was the only job I applied for as I have been hurtling toward this very moment. I'm glad you, now enlightened person on the other end of the phone, are now aligned with God's purposes I knew all along.
He asked the usual questions, and I summoned excitement from somewhere. Thank you for the chance to rehearse a job description. Again. Thank you for the chance to wrestle the plot lines of my life into a Beginning, a Middle, and an End which pauses majestically where my gifts meet the world's needs as expressed by your job opening. I paced the verbal dance with sufficient robustness because I was invited for an interview. I let my new friend know that I would need to work out some logistics because I do not drive, and this time his was the tone that changed. All other things being equal, employers want the flexibility of a driving employee. I understand that, and I said so. He said he would need to check with his boss. Then, discerning something familiar in my voice from his interactions with a cousin with cerebral palsy, he parted with what could have been the, "Let's be friends," of the employment process. He labeled me an inspiration.
The pessimism in this possibility began to harden as the days passed. Did the consultation with the boss familiar to used car buyers everywhere actually happen? If so, I wasn't hearing the results. I began to identify particularly with the disabled the title character on the sitcom Speechless who, frustrated, complained of the tiresome privilege of being somebody's inspiration porn. I sent more applications spinning into cyberspace more as an antidote to despair and bitterness than because I was encouraged by their likely success. Then, Wednesday night, among brothers and sisters in my Christian faith, I went beyond the prescribed steps of the separate but equally predictable "How is the job search?", "Fine, thank you for asking him for praying, dance. Without using the phrase inspiration porn which may have brought the church walls tumbling down, I expressed the resigned likelihood that mere inspiration had been exchanged for offered employment.
The next morning, the phone rang again. Drop and slow the voice. Find the inner Mr. Perky who learned his part watching infomercials, and start the process again. Only, this voice was familiar even to my scattered brain which so quickly forgets that not committed to media. Mr. Perky got reacquainted with Mr. Inspiration, who apparently meant what he said. Mr. Inspiration wanted me to come in so we could, he said, "have a conversation." Jaded as I am or pretend to be to soften the landing from overheated optimism, his phrasing seems to carry an invitation to negotiation between equals. Mr. Perky is, on the cusp such a conversation later today, cheerfully elbowing aside my more cautious spokesmen to get access to my printed page and your kind attention. The Christian intentions posted on the company's website rouse my aspirations that, across the desk and the usual formalities, I might really connect with the company's mission. Mr. Inspiration and I might for a moment find common ground as, to invoke the phrasing of another missionary in Heavenly Man, our souls recognize each other. Here's hoping.
This was an employer. As my pulse quickened, I fought physiology and forced my voice down an octave and into a slower pace. Impromptu interview subjects and those receiving a wake-up call from the few live humans performing such functions in a hotel anymore want to give every impression that we were expecting this call and prepared for it. Of course. I've been awake for hours, but thank you for your call. Of course. Yours was the only job I applied for as I have been hurtling toward this very moment. I'm glad you, now enlightened person on the other end of the phone, are now aligned with God's purposes I knew all along.
He asked the usual questions, and I summoned excitement from somewhere. Thank you for the chance to rehearse a job description. Again. Thank you for the chance to wrestle the plot lines of my life into a Beginning, a Middle, and an End which pauses majestically where my gifts meet the world's needs as expressed by your job opening. I paced the verbal dance with sufficient robustness because I was invited for an interview. I let my new friend know that I would need to work out some logistics because I do not drive, and this time his was the tone that changed. All other things being equal, employers want the flexibility of a driving employee. I understand that, and I said so. He said he would need to check with his boss. Then, discerning something familiar in my voice from his interactions with a cousin with cerebral palsy, he parted with what could have been the, "Let's be friends," of the employment process. He labeled me an inspiration.
The pessimism in this possibility began to harden as the days passed. Did the consultation with the boss familiar to used car buyers everywhere actually happen? If so, I wasn't hearing the results. I began to identify particularly with the disabled the title character on the sitcom Speechless who, frustrated, complained of the tiresome privilege of being somebody's inspiration porn. I sent more applications spinning into cyberspace more as an antidote to despair and bitterness than because I was encouraged by their likely success. Then, Wednesday night, among brothers and sisters in my Christian faith, I went beyond the prescribed steps of the separate but equally predictable "How is the job search?", "Fine, thank you for asking him for praying, dance. Without using the phrase inspiration porn which may have brought the church walls tumbling down, I expressed the resigned likelihood that mere inspiration had been exchanged for offered employment.
The next morning, the phone rang again. Drop and slow the voice. Find the inner Mr. Perky who learned his part watching infomercials, and start the process again. Only, this voice was familiar even to my scattered brain which so quickly forgets that not committed to media. Mr. Perky got reacquainted with Mr. Inspiration, who apparently meant what he said. Mr. Inspiration wanted me to come in so we could, he said, "have a conversation." Jaded as I am or pretend to be to soften the landing from overheated optimism, his phrasing seems to carry an invitation to negotiation between equals. Mr. Perky is, on the cusp such a conversation later today, cheerfully elbowing aside my more cautious spokesmen to get access to my printed page and your kind attention. The Christian intentions posted on the company's website rouse my aspirations that, across the desk and the usual formalities, I might really connect with the company's mission. Mr. Inspiration and I might for a moment find common ground as, to invoke the phrasing of another missionary in Heavenly Man, our souls recognize each other. Here's hoping.
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