Evangelists: A Reader's Request (Pt 2)

It'd been three months or so since this all began, three months since I'd used the railing from a handicapped stall in the men's room at work to beat one of my subordinates to death. Even now, I can hear her angry shrieks. I can still feel her hands grabbing at my shirt and her blood splattering my face. In that season of my life, I had nightmares every time I slept; and those that replayed her death were the mild ones.

Day 100.

I awoke with a start, as I had every morning since Beth's passing; and, as I had every morning for those three months, I fought back the tears - the unstoppable heaviness - that came with realising that, at best, everyone I once loved was dead. At worst, they were zombies.

In sharing this tale, I hesitate to use the word, "zombies" because I fear it gives the wrong impression. You might imagine shuffling hordes of reanimated corpses, moaning as they decompose in motion. You might see George Romero's imagination take form - the quiet dead returning to attack the living. I wish our apocalypse had been so peaceful.

From what little television was still airing during the first week of the attacks, what communication we'd been able to establish with people outside and what we saw in those of us who became infected, we deduced that this illness didn't kill and revive its host. The zombie disease was more like mental trauma than magic. 

The host lost most of his human functions, the whole of his mind relegated to the reptile brain, where base instinct took over. A horrendous fever coursed through the body, taking up most of the host's energy and causing considerable pain. This combination of mental degradation and physical illness caused a heightened paranoia to the animal mind within. Everything looked edible; everyone looked dangerous. To further complicate things, the body seemed to react to the constant pain by shutting down certain nervous functions, lending the infected a physical numbness that rendered all but mortal wounds ineffective.
 
The assailants didn't necessarily prefer human flesh to other things; they'd eat anything to replace the energy lost to their fever. Hospital patients, back when hospitals were the place to take a zombie, were often found eating the contents of their bedpans. It wasn't until someone tried to interrupt their meal that a paranoid man-beast would attack the staff. 

Once, an electronics associate who'd been infected at my store was so engrossed in some sauerkraut he'd found that I was able to walk up and shoot him from the side without incident.

I hate how nonchalantly I can say that.

Having successfully pushed down an ocean of tears cresting at the dam I'd spent fourteen weeks building, I climbed down from the freezer I slept on. While much of my crew preferred to sleep in the back room, where we'd emptied out some large shelves to serve as elevated beds, I preferred sleeping out where I could hear most things. When a majority of the shelving on a sales floor has been moved to barricade the front glass entryways of your store, you can easily hear someone whispering in sporting goods from a perch on the edge of the produce department. This is important if that whisperer in sporting goods happens to turn in the dead of night.

If you find yourself in a zompocalypse and you can make it to a supermarket, do so. I worked  for a dutch retail giant called Vallenmarkt, off and on, for four years. I was in the midst of an overnight shift supervising four cashiers when the horrors that now define my existence came to bear. The thing that keeps me mindful of God's providence is that, though my heart is in shreds, my body is well-cared for. Food, water, shelter,  weapons, clothing and even entertainment are all non-issues in this brick and mortar behemoth.

I opened one of the freezer doors and set the climb-up-to-my-perch rope inside of it. I hadn't seen any infected ascend a knotted rope yet; but I took no chances when it came to my bed. From the inactive freezer, I pulled out a clean set of clothes and my toiletry bag. Remembering that I had run out of deodorant the previous day, I made my way to the deli counter, where we kept bins of hygiene products. I pulled a new stick of Mitchum gel out of the bin marked "Deodorant" and headed for the men's room. 

Using water from one of our rain-collection buckets, I bathed. In the mirror, I inspected my complexion, looking for any signs of illness. I seemed okay. I had the bags under my eyes and pale skin that marked a man who'd done little sleeping and even less peaceful sleeping. I tried smiling; but that only resulted in the haunted sort of grin you see in bad movies about insane asylums.

Brushing my teeth, I noticed a little bit of pink in the foam I spat out. I said a quiet prayer. The most terrifying thing about this virus/illness/infection/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is that, though a bite will always get you, sometimes a bite isn't needed. So far, no one had been able to divine what caused these sudden turns; but it was  horrifying. Somehow, un-bitten individuals would change, though we hadn't seen a zombie in days or weeks. To give things an even more jarring effect, our infected didn't take hours or even minutes to turn. It was a matter of seconds. Looking into the mirror again, I imagined myself suddenly snarling and attacking the man before me. I wondered how long it would take for my reptile brain to realise I'd never taste the mirror-man's flesh.

Suddenly, from the far end of the store, I heard a shuddering explosion and the piercing screech of metal tearing. My dim eyes went wide and I ran toward the sound. From a sheath on my belt I pulled a heavy machete. This was not one of the flimsy, grass cutting affairs we used to have hanging with our camping supplies. This was a gift from one of my dear friends, crafted from a lawn-mower blade and given an electric-tape handle. I had to fight and creep my way across Longview to fetch it from what was left of my old home. There, I had buried my sisters' bodies and found within me just enough rage and heartache to keep on moving in this crazy world.

Bursting through the double-doors that separated the back room from the sales floor, I found that a blue Volvo had torn through the rolling door once used for small delivery vans and parked itself among our pallets of home-canned fruits and vegetables. In the driver's seat, I could see a blonde head of hair set against the steering wheel. The driver was either laughing or crying. Meanwhile, a few hundred broken mason jars leaked their contents across the floor; and we now had a hole in our back wall.  Those who had been sleeping on the steel racks  were climbing down and gathering around the intruding vehicle. One or two were slamming their fists on the hood of the car, as though to intimidate the driver.

"Guys! Guys, calm down. Back up; back up." The small crowd receded. Machete still in-hand, I approached the driver's window.

I tapped the glass with a knuckle, half-wondering if the girl had turned while driving. The face that looked up at me had tears streaming down her face and something deeply familiar to its features. No rage, no hunger and no red, feverish skin. Just a sort of relieved fear, as if she had escaped something terrible by going into something scary.

"Miss, are you okay?" I called through the closed glass. She nodded and then began rolling down the window by hand.

"Yeah, I'm okay." her voice faltered for a moment. 

One of the men in our group cursed loudly, complaining about the mess she'd made. I told him to stow it for a minute. Looking back at the girl, something clicked in the back of my head; and a name rushed to the front of my mind.

"Liz Holsinger?" I asked, incredulous.

Fear turned to suspicion, "Yes. Who are you?" she demanded.

"Isaac. Isaac Stiltz! I wrote that blog! You were, like, my only fan!" 

Suddenly, I wasn't in the middle of an apocalypse, but slipping back into a life before I had to build a dam against tears, before I had to pray against death as I brushed my teeth. I could tell, by the way she suddenly laughed, that the Volvo-crashing blonde had gone back in her mind as well, to a time when Facebook seemed to matter, food that grew naturally was expensive and friends of friends could become your friends with a click of the mouse.

As we greeted each other, my coworkers began to complain again about the mess. I returned to the present for a moment and began delegating. The maintenance team was charged with cleaning up the canned goods and repacking what could be salvaged for immediate use. I put another team to the task of bending the sliding door back into place and reinforcing it with old shelving materials.

Once everyone knew their job, I re-sheathed my machete, beckoned Liz from her car and began helping her unload the supplies she'd filled it with. We took a full cart up to the front to be sorted. As we passed by the electronics area, she admired the large screen we'd hooked up to generators. There were usually  movies or video games going around the clock. I asked her how she -an Olympia resident- had ended up in Longview during a zompocalypse.

Apparently, she'd been in our town selling a king-sized mattress to a friend when the infection hit. Since then, she'd had to move from house to house, staying quiet and running off when things got too hairy.  She'd found a working car and some dried goods near the highway and had been en route to I-5 north when she saw the Vallenmarkt sign. Realising that she could either hole up in a big place with lots of food or drive north to who-knows-what-fate, she decided to try the store first. She encountered a horde in the front lot and so drove around-

I cut her off "Wait, there was a horde out front? Did they see where you went?"

"I'm...not sure." she admitted. I sprinted again to the back room.

"Guys!" I shouted before I was even through the door, "BOOK!"

Through the plastic window, I could see the workers look up and run to fetch their weapons. I pulled my machete out again and slammed my body, shoulder first, through the plastic doors.  The greyish dark outside lent enough light to silhouette the enraged zombies that were running around in the back lot. I knew, with the lights inside, it would be only a moment before they began flooding in. One of the maintenance crew, a tall gentleman named Manuel, returned with a hatchet and a heavy-duty trash can lid. As the first infected came through, he employed the lid like a shield and buried his hatchet in the attacker's skull. I stepped forward, toward the bent door. Two more zombies came into view, and I decapitated both. I could see more workers coming with their weapons and more shadows outside coming to meet them.

Suddenly, I was lifted off my feet as a football-team's worth of assailants hit the door at once. I flew a number of feet and landed on my back; my machete fell from my hand and skidded across the floor. Looking up, I saw one of the infected running toward me with the same full sprint and unfathomable rage I'd seen so many times before. As the heavy, bloody man approached, I kicked at his forward foot with my left, causing him to stumble. My right foot caught him in the chest as he fell; and swift push sent him backward about a yard an a half. 

I scrambled to my feet as quickly as possible and made a run for my machete. The heavy man was faster than I'd guessed; and he slammed into me just as I bent down to pick up my blade.  I rolled and used the momentum to get back up.  Because my boots are less bite-sensitive than my fists, I prefer kicking to punching. 

I swept the man's feet out from under him and stomped on his head a few times, until I heard a crunch that told me he'd stay down. Hearing footsteps to my right I sent out a push-kick that caught a tall woman in the gut and knocked her down with a snarl. I grabbed my machete and swung around to meet her second attack, but slipped on some of the leaked strawberry preserves. When I regained my footing, I turned to find the woman dead, an arrow sticking out of her left eye. I chopped a few more heads off and looked to thank my resucer.

Taking a hurried survey of the scene, I saw that only two or three stragglers remained outside and we had lost at least two men to this battle. There was not a single bow nor crossbow in sight; and my tall woman was the only zombie with an arrow sticking out of her.  I turned around to look down the hallway that led from the back room to the offices. I found myself facing Liz, who was holding a compound bow.

"You should be more aware of your surroundings, Isaac. " she warned, motioning to the fruit that I'd stepped on

I raised an eyebrow, "All things considered, I could say the same thing to you. Losing that fight would have killed me; but your mistake cost two men you've never met their lives and could have cost a lot  more."

Liz shifted her gaze downward. "I'm sorry." she said softly, "It was a mistake."

"We can't get away with mistakes," I retorted, "not even small ones. Not in this world. If you're staying here, I need to know you'll be vigilant."

I walked away feeling like a bit of a jerk. 

Gathering with the guys, we surveyed the damage. With so much infected blood splattering around, the broken jars and their contents had to be counted as loss. The two dead left our crew at a dozen, thirteen with Liz. The remaining men were divided between those who wanted to throw our newcomer back out the door she came in through and those who wanted to forgo the roundabout route and kill her themselves. I ended the debate swiftly.

"What's our motto, guys?"

An uncomfortable silence followed.

"Come on." I prompted, "It goes 'Deadly in battle...'"

One of the guys murmured something.

"What's that?" I asked.

"...lively in good deeds." he finished the saying.

"Gents, we live in a world full of men who've become beasts. There's no sense in fighting to survive this mess if we're only going to become beasts ourselves. The girl stays; and anyone who harms her or allows harm to come to her will answer to me. Is that clear?"

The crew mumbled in reluctant agreement. We worked together, patching the metal door, moving the car out to the sales floor and cleaning up the mess my friend had left in her wake. By the time we finished, the sun was well on its way across the sky, illuminating the main area  of the store through a series of skylights that had been Vallenmarkt's token energy conservation effort.

I started cooking breakfast in a makeshift cafeteria we'd built  in what used to be the ladies' department. Because the clothing racks were so easy to move, we'd had no problem clearing a large space out for tables and chairs. This morning, I made pancakes with fruit preserves mixed in. I also included a small bowl of mixed vegetables with each plate.

The guys often told me I'd make a great mom someday.

When Liz appeared, the excited chatter of men enjoying a well-earned meal became a quiet murmur of  men eying an intruder. The tension was thick; and it did not pass the girl's notice. She took a seat at an empty table on the far side of our dining area , a large, restaurant-sized affair we'd found in the training room,without a plate of food.

As I handed a plate to Manuel, I said, "Sir, would you mind sitting with me when I get my plate?"

He looked to Liz and then at me, skepticism plain in his eyes.

"Are you sure about this, boss?" he asked, "I mean, are you sure you're bein' objective about her?"

Suddenly, I was seeing myself through my crew's eyes; and I felt embarrassed.

"No, no it's not that." I assured him, "When this started, we all agreed that we'd help anyone who needed us. 'Deadly in battle, lively in good deeds', remember?"

Manuel gave a quick smile; and I could tell he was trying his best to believe me.

"Yes," I admitted, "I kind of knew her on Facebook, Back When; but the reason she stays is that we still have that responsibility to help. If you join me over at that table, I know the other guys will feel more comfortable about this arrangement. I could use that kind of solidarity right now."

Manuel sighed, leaning his head from side to side as though weighing mental options with actual weight. Then he nodded.

"Sure, I'll sit with you."

I filled two plates and two bowls, turned off the stove and made my way to Liz's table. As Manuel and I passed the crew, I gave them a quick nod and grabbed one of the pots of coffee from their table; they seemed unsure of what to think right then. 

As we approached Liz, a deep insecurity was evident in her face. I set a plate and a bowl in front of her, taking my seat directly across the table. Manuel gave an unsure glance over his shoulder, toward the other guys and then took his seat. I offered Liz a warm smile; then, remembering what I'd seen in the mirror that morning, I quickly reverted to my normal expression. No one spoke for a number of minutes.

"So...." Manuel was the first to break the silence. Unfortunately, one word was as far as he got. Another silence, more painful than the previous, settled over us.

As we ate, the quiet grew until it covered the other tables as well.

Finally, Liz stood up. She cleared her throat and addressed the crew as a whole.

"Look, I'm sorry about your friends. If I had known that there were people in here, or that the zombies were following me, I would've been more careful. I know you're angry with me; and I don't blame you." Her voice quavered, "I'd be angry with me, too."

There was a short pause that felt like ages; nobody so much as moved in his seat. Liz took another deep breath.

"If you let me, I'd like to make it up to you. I can work hard. I can be vigilant. I will do whatever I have to, to pay back the debt I owe you all for taking me in after the trouble I've caused."

With that, she sat down and continued eating her vegetables. I just stared.

"That was awesome." I don't remember deciding to say anything; rather the words felt like they fell, slowly and unintentionally, from my mouth. Manuel nodded in agreement.

"Thanks." Liz said quietly without looking up.

I heard shuffling feet behind me and the voice of one of the men asking, "Miss? Would it be alright if we joined you for breakfast?"

As the whole crew gathered around one table, there was neither silence nor rowdy jocularity. Instead, a quiet, friendly discourse pervaded the table - one that bespoke new friendships forming and the welcoming of a new sister into our brotherhood.

 

Had I known then what course our story was to take, I may have done more to make that breakfast last a bit longer.

To be continued...

-isaac

Evangelists: A Reader's Request (Pt 1)

Day One.

"Isaac!"

I cringed. The earpiece I had been issued only two weeks before all this happened was on the verge of melting. So many loud, high-frequency sounds had been pouring through the speaker that my ears threatened to go on strike. I raised the hanging mic piece to my mouth.

"Yes?" I replied tentatively.

"Did you sign into your task?" Sophie's voice was a high pitched whine that she sent forth with impressive volume in order, I think, to make up for her diminutive stature. I sighed, replied to the negative effect and made my way to the front office. On a desktop, I typed in my password and selected an item on the screen. A timer started, allotting me fifteen minutes to complete a task I'd finished hours ago. I sighed again.

This was my third stint at Vallenmarkt, a Dutch retailer that had all but taken over the world at that time. The first time, I'd left to venture into the far reaches of Africa. I somehow thought that, upon my return, my life would "take off". I'd find work that I loved doing and never darken the doorway of  the place again. When that didn't happen, when I ended up there as a temporary bike builder for the Christmas rush, I felt as though I must not have learned much in Africa. When I had to apply a third time, I was bitter. 

I suppose, in a life as unmarred by tragedy as mine was then, a person has to look for things to be unhappy about.

Stepping out of the office, I made my way to the front aisle, where my cashiers were unloading a pallet of candy and knick-knacks into carts for distribution among the registers. These four girls had proven the easiest part of my transfer to the graveyard shift. Though the daytime Customer Care Supervisors had warned me against befriending the nighttime cashiers, it was the overnight managers and stocking crew I'd had problems with. A culture of mutual inconsideration seemed to pervade the place after the sun had set.

As the supervisor over these cashiers, I was able to create my own culture at the front end of the store, one separate and antithetical to that of the sales floor. I referred to each of them as "Miss" and made a point of using phrases obscure to the night shift, like "Please", "Thank you" and "Excellent work". These efforts seemed to have an immediate effect. The reports I heard from my predecessor were nothing like what I experienced among my workers.

One of the girls, a twenty-something named Linda, approached me with her phone in hand. During the day, rules against using a cell phone while at work were strictly enforced. Overnight, most supervisors let it slide unless there were customers nearby or it started affecting work. Laughing to herself, Linda showed me a picture she had found on the internet. Two puppies were at play; one of them had the other's snout in his mouth. A caption read "Bath salts". I chuckled, remembering the recent news frenzy surrounding an attack in Miami.  

A man, naked and in a fit, had attacked a transient, biting at his face. When police gave the man a warning shot, he didn't even pause in his attack. The crazed cannibal had to be shot more than six times - to death - in order to save the victim's life. Officers familiar with cases like that one had blamed an amphetamine-based drug that bore the street handle "bath salts". Those of the zombie-apocalypse persuasion took the event as a sign to stock up on shotgun ammo and canned ravioli.

"You know what's crazy about that?" I mentioned, "The toxicology report came back; and the guy didn't have  any bath salts in him."

Linda's amused expression dimmed.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah. I read an article that said that the only drug in him was marijuana. I guess there's no knowing what happened to make him attack like that."

Linda looked troubled for a moment; then her face brightened again. This time, the brightness didn't reach her eyes. I began to ask her if she was okay; but my ear nearly exploded with Sophie's voice.

"Isaac! Call me at one-nine-oh!"

Heading back into the office, I picked up the phone and dialed. Before the first ring had ended, I found myself receiving a verbal lashing for forgetting to sign into my tasks on time, a nightly ritual which I had yet to see the point of. I apologised nonetheless and spent a few minutes reading my work email while I licked my wounds.

I checked on each of the cashiers, seeing how the work was progressing; then I started rotating through their breaks. It was just past midnight.

Day Two.

"Zoning" is Vallenmarkt's name for what every other retailer I'd ever encountered called "facing". This was the process of lining up and straightening all the products in an area to face forward and sit on the edge of the shelf. With candy and impulse-buy products, this task felt especially tedious. Every night, after the day's merchandise had been distributed among the registers, we went back to the beginning and zoned the whole mess.

Thinking back to then, to before the world fell to pieces and what I called my prison became my fortress, I guess zoning wasn't such a taxing job. The life I lived afterward could've handle a dose of something so simple and monotonous, something so neat and together as a well-arranged aisle of candy bars.

It was half past one; and I'd seen no sign of Linda- the last cashier I'd sent to break. Because I found it best to lead by example, I tried to let my cashiers go to break before I do. Sometimes, the clock just didn't allow for that; but they seemed to appreciate the effort and emulate the attitude. 

It was getting uncomfortably close to the time to start rotating lunch breaks; and I needed Linda around to help me finish zoning, distribute shopping bags and serve customers. I paged for her, using the PA system at the fitting room. Another five minutes passed; and I decided to start lunches anyway. 

"Miss Beth," I called, "why don't you head to lunch?"

Beth, an older lady with a bit of a smart-alec streak to her, loudly declined and threatened violence if I tried to make her.

"Fine." I adopted an east-coast accent, "Turn in your badge and your weapon! I don't want to see you anywhere near this investigation! Go home; I'll call you when I wanna' see you again!"

We all laughed as she set a box in her cart and made her way toward the lunch room.

The clock had just passed 2am when the sirens started. One by one, the howling sounds built on  each other until the whole air seemed full of the noise. I don't know if there had been sirens going around before then that had escaped our notice, or if these were the first sign of what was coming. I do know that there was no ignoring these. The three of us along the registers paused in our work to listen.

I turned to Kristy, who was manning register 16, where we keep our tobacco. She had pulled out her phone; and whatever she saw on its screen alarmed her. I opened my mouth to ask her what was going on when I heard an angry shriek from the rear end of the store.  Katie looked in the direction of the sound and her face turned pale. Footsteps echoed at the pace of a full-on sprint. I wondered if we were about to encounter a shoplifter. I took a few steps toward the sound. 

Looking back toward Kristy, I found the register empty. Surveying the aisle along the front wall of the store, I could see her running hard and fast for the door. "What is going on tonight?" I asked myself.

The footsteps from the back got closer. I turned to face the sprinter and found myself face-to-face with Beth, who lunged at me with a ferocity I've only ever encountered in sports fans.

I never told you this; but I once worked for an organisation that provided full-time care to people with disabilities. One of the things I learned during the training course was a technique called "redirection". This used the energy of an attack to move the attacker away without injuring either party. I redirected Beth.

She seemed disoriented for a moment, as though wondering where I'd gone off to. Taking my cue from Kristy's hurried escape, I made a break for the men's room.

Locking myself in a stall, I sat on the toilet and lifted my legs to keep my presence unknown. Feeling a buzz in my pocket. I remembered that I had a phone of my own and that it might reveal to me whatever Kristy had seen. I pulled my phone out and found a number of messages and missed calls.

From the best man I know:

 

Within five minutes of entering that stall, I found that I was what was left of my family and friends. I learned that most of the country - if not the world -  was full of assailants like Mister Bath Salts from Miami. I found that no one in my contacts list could be reached. I learned that things had taken a very ill turn since I'd started my shift. I learned that Beth was not feeling much like herself at all; and that there was no helping her without dying.

In the men's room at Vallenmarkt, a certain handle on the wall, meant to be used by handicapped customers or those too heavy to lift themselves off the toilet without help, had been loose for years. For some reason, none of our maintenance personnel had gotten around to to repairing it. I had often thought of tearing the thing out of the wall, but feared I'd be accused of vandalism. On this night, vandalism was the least of my concerns.

When I emerged from the restroom, Beth was gnawing on a lifeless body, likely that of  Shelby, the last of my cashiers, at the register directly ahead of me. When she saw me approaching, her eyes filled up with that unspeakable rage all over again; and I imagine the expression in my eyes was about the same.

To be continued....

-isaac

Diminutive

I already wrote about the ideal of grace orientation [See "Blooming Theology"]; but there's an uncomfortable side to adopting this attitude that I want to touch on.

You see, we can dig the idea of showing grace and loving people even when they're rude or ugly or smelly; but we usually don't want to be loved on those terms. There's a deep humiliation that comes with learning that you are loved and accepted, not because people find you lovely and acceptable, but because they have decided to push through all the unattractive things and love you anyway. Even if we can accept this kind of love from God and bestow this kind of love on others, accepting it from other humans is difficult. I think it an understandable discomfort, too.

When God loves me in spite of me, it's because He's so freaking high above my petty sin and stupid choices that He must either find a way to reconcile the gap (hence Jesus) or do away with me altogether. There's a heavy note of  "high-and-mighty" to this kind of love; but I'm okay with God thinking He's bigger and better than me.

When other people love in spite of me, it feels as though they are playing "the bigger man", as if they are forgiving me for the grand evil of being me - and that feels humiliating. For broken people to get on a high horse about my brokenness hits me the wrong way.

It's not really a high horse, though, is it? If  I accept that we're all broken, and if I accept that my flaws are unlovely to God and annoying to people and if I remember that I've shown people "unmerited love" as many times as I've gotten over myself for long enough to swing it, then I really have no reason to begrudge people their exercises in grace.

When I act with grace, do I really feel high-and-mighty about it? If not, why should I assume that others do?

What it boils down to is this: Grace is an offense to pride. To accept undeserved kindness is to acknowledge that it's undeserved - that I am NOT worthy, NOT awesome enough to earn it.


...and my ego seethes.

-isaac

Sharpshooting

I work for the world's largest retail organisation. I started four years ago, calling myself a "Merchandise Transport Reclamation Specialist". My boss called me a "Courtesy Associate". Really, they were both just fancy ways of saying that I pulled carts. Now, though I quit once and was laid off another time, I am an Overnight Customer Service Manager, which is their fancy way of saying "head cashier".

At my store, I encounter what I consider a "core sample" of Longview's culture. In what other of this town's parking lots will you find a vintage Jag parked next to a beat up 1985 Accord? Where else do you see the most polite children in the world gawking at those poor kids who get stuck with the task of telling their parents what to do? The best and worst of our fair city seem to converge in this one place.

Because I am in the service industry, I spend a lot of time playing a background character in my customers' personal dramas. For some reason, when you put on a name tag and stand behind a counter, you don't exist until the person in front of you finds your existence convenient. Thus I am witness to more arguments than you could imagine. It is incredible, what dirty laundry the average person will hang out in front of a cashier. What I have learned in my years of hearing people fight is that many mistake expression for communication.

This is a pretty common mistake; and it seems to me that most people who've stopped making it don't even realise they've learned anything - as if, for some, the lesson comes naturally.

Expression, for the sake of this post (and a number of real-life applications), is the "letting" of one's thoughts and feelings. When I express myself, I am not so concerned about others knowing what I'm thinking or feeling as getting those thoughts and feelings outside myself.

Conversely, communication is an effort to transfer thoughts and feelings to another person. I do not mean that the other adopts those same thoughts and feelings; rather, a person is made to understand those thoughts and feelings and is able to accurately ponder them.

To put it another way:

Expression is getting what's "in here", "out there".

Communication is getting what"s "in here", "into there".

To express, there's no need for understanding. You needn't even understand yourself, let alone the people around you. Sometimes, when I'm confused by my own feelings, or unable to gather my thoughts,  I can play the drums or plink around on a piano for a while and start feeling better. I've expressed myself, though I had no idea what I was expressing.

(I think it's this ambiguity that makes art of any sort so incredible. That we should take a message from the colourful "lettings" of another person's mind and heart is remarkable. What's even more remarkable is that we sometimes find ourselves taking away the very same feelings and thoughts the artist put into it.)

Communication, on the other hand, requires a few different levels of understanding. For starters, you need to identify what it is you're thinking or feeling. Then, you need to think about who you're talking to and develop an idea of how they process information. Then you have the simple task of helping someone else make sense of what's on your mind.

Expressing yourself at someone when you mean to communicate is like sharpshooting with a shotgun. Only a few out of hundreds of your small, round, metal thoughts will ever hit home; and, depending on what you're aiming at and how loudly you're yelling, even these will probably have lost most of their thrust by the time they get there.

Too often, I watch people express their brains out at another person, without stopping to think about whether what they're saying makes any sense or if it's having the effect they mean it to. The victim of this verbal bludgeoning usually responds in kind. The result is this: Two people walk away from a conversation angry and confused, but otherwise unchanged.

Here's the thing: (And this really is the most important part of everything I'm saying here.) Communication, just like the whole of human interaction, is mean to be formative. Its function is to give us a way of changing each other from the inside out. From even the most simple conversations, something about us shifts - if only in that our mood is slightly different; the power of communication is that we can make the most of these opportunities to help others shift for the better.

People talk about living purposefully. I say, let's start with speaking purposefully and see how quickly the rest of our lives follow suit. Let's try making the most of those daily opportunities that arise over a cup of tea or in-between greetings at church. Jesus wrote nothing that lasted beyond the next harsh breeze; but He communicated with people in a way that bestowed vision and passion and life itself to them. He knew His people and how to talk to them.

In that way, good communication really is like sharpshooting. You listen, observe and take much into account before pulling the trigger. You "know" your "audience", so to speak. How I tell a 13-year-old kid "No" is not how I tell the cashiers I lead "No."  How I tell someone a hard truth one day may not be the same way he needs to hear it the next day. How I encourage one person may employ a tone and wording totally different from what I use to encourage another.

It's this "knowing" that I think makes this lesson so tricky. There's only so much you can learn about a stranger in a few minutes; but sometimes, a few minutes is all you have. Other times, people can just be so darn unknowable - secretive, distrusting, dishonest or just awkward - that learning how to talk to them is more a matter of trial and error than anything else.

For example:

I'm a storyteller; and I come from a family of storytellers. (Even worse, we're a family of sarcastic, storytelling Grammar Nazis) So, at work, a lot of my social interaction with co-workers takes the form of short little stories that I tell between rushes or while we clean. Sometimes, it's an amusing anecdote about one of our customers; other times, I'll tell about some of the adventures I've had.

Having moved to overnights recently, I've found that the lady training me has a three-sentence attention span. After my third sentence on any topic not directly pertinent to putting items on shelves, I see her eyes glaze over; her laugh sounds forced and she's gone as soon as she has an acceptable reason to leave. So, in our quiet moments, when I would normally tell stories or discuss a recent movie-watching experience, I have no idea what to do.  How do you communicate with someone who won't stay with you long enough to be communicated with?

Fortunately, the other people I'll be working with seem to enjoy a good story.

So, let's be honest: This is a lesson I've not completely mastered. Sometimes, I fail at communicating. I misjudge my "audience" or adopt an ill tone or let my tongue get ahead of my brain. Sometimes, I set out to amuse and end up embarrassing myself.  Like most things worth mastering, this one looks a lot like a life-long process. I only hope that God will continue granting me grace to grow in this and that some of what I've learned will be helpful to you.

-isaac

Blooming Theology

The best man I know has spent the better part of the last few years delving into the deep, rich corners of the Bible. He takes Greek lessons and spends hours daily listening to podcasts of  some of the greatest minds in Christendom as they unpack the mind-bending complexities of our faith. Sometimes, to make things easier, his internet pastors will coin different phrases and use certain words only one certain way. This helps, because, instead of having to re-explain an hour's lesson every time he refers to it, a preacher can just say three words that his congregants will recognise as meaning "That One thing We Already Discussed".


When my friend and I talk about God, I sometimes get annoyed because he'll spout off these words that mean nothing to me or mean something that he's not talking about. It took three weeks of listening to him ramble about "staying positive toward God" to realise he meant "making daily choices that please God" - not "having an optimistic attitude about Him."


A while ago, he taught me this one theological phrase that blew the top off my understanding of Scripture and realigned a lot of my attitudes.


"Grace orientation"


Imagine your thoughts and knowledge about God are like a flower. At the root of it all sit the Word of God, your own philosophy and logic. From these things, you draw the central conclusion that God is Love. Love, the stem of your imaginary flower, culminates in grace. Grace is that part of the flower I can't seem to find the name for. It's where the stem joins the flowering part of the plant - that spot where the awkwardly named reproductive bits begin. Shooting out from grace, like bee-attracting petals, are all your thoughts, ideas and understandings about God.  This is the ideal of grace orientation, that every verse you read, every passage you argue about should move out from this central point.


To help the phrase make a bit more sense, all theology should be oriented around grace.

1) Grace Orientation and My Place with God.
Let's start with an ugly truth. If I read my Bible correctly, not one of us dusty creatures deserves Heaven. Quite the opposite, actually. Because we've made such a mess of this world and ourselves, we have all earned a lasting separation from God.


Fortunately, that's not what God has in mind for us.


So, while everything about me points to a ride on the notorious "[Heck]evator", God's gone out of His way to keep me on this side of the flaming gates.


What does this mean for our relationship?

a) Everything above [Heck] is extra.
Let's say I back my car into my sister's car. I do about a thousand bucks of damage. Because she's "just that sort of person", she forgives the debt. In my account of Things-Isaac-Doesn't-Deserve (TIDD), there's an entry of $1000.  The next day, having (through some force deeper and stronger than the universe itself) convinced her insurance company to cough up some dollars, my sister treats me to sushi. The TIDD account now reads ($1000+sushi). I run out of gas on the way to work that evening; so I drag my embarrassed butt to my sister's door and beg some gas money from her. 

If my sister says, "No.", have I any room to argue, become angry or feel cheated? 

Hardly.


If my sister had said, at the start, "I'll forgive this debt; but you need to take driving lessons, so you don't crash any more cars.", can I blame her or call her unreasonable? 

Nope - especially not if I've made a habit of crashing into things.


What I deserve is to go gasless and sushiless into a debt hole of a cool grand. Anything above that is "extra" and reason to be grateful.

I deserve Hell. So, when I accepted my invitation to Heaven, I put myself in the red. When I received good friends, an awesome family and experiences other people dream of, I only deepened the shade of red. My good deeds are pennies against billions. So, when I ask for something and God (usually for my own good) declines, I have no room to begrudge Him that prerogative. When He requires of me more than I feel like giving, I am being little more than an ingrate. If He sees fit to let me die a horrid, stinking, violent, painful, slow death that somehow involves months spent eating naught but asparagus-onion-mushroom stew, I will still be in His debt and without room to hold a moment of it against Him. (When I get to Heaven, I doubt I'll be in much of a complaining mood anyway.)


My relationship with God is a bit like my relationship with the best man I know. Since he's always been more dollars-savvy than I, he's treated me to something like forty bajillion movies, beverages, hotel rooms (on various vacations), rides (gas isn't free), meals and who-knows-what-else. When it started, I kept swearing that, one day, I'd pay it all back to him. Eventually, it got to a point where I knew I'd never get there. We'd gone too long and he'd done too much to make repayment an option. Somehow, even these days, I have the gall to sometimes ask him for things. When he can, he acquiesces. When he declines, even I have the presence of both heart and mind to remain grateful toward him.


b) God is good, even when it looks bad.
A lot of people are uncomfortable with the way God handles judgement in the Old Testament and Revelation. The whole "smiting" thing sets them on edge. I mean, if a human kills a a few million people, it's unquestionable that he shouldn't be trusted around other humans and should thus be removed from this world as soon as can be arranged. Yet, when God commands genocide and destroys the planet, He is still Love, Himself?

Two premises helped me with this, though I'll admit it's still fuzzier an explanation than I like. 

First, nothing is deserved. Everything is God and His grace. This means that everything above Hell is extra. (So far, we're just reiterating, right?) 

A car? Extra. 

A house? Extra. 

Friends, family and awkward-but-amiable acquaintances? Extra.

Being alive?

Also extra.

Second, humans don't die. Being killed is a short horror that leads to either a wonder that makes the preceding moments a mere trifle of an uncomfortable moment or a deeper horror that makes the preceding pain seem like beds of rose petals by comparison. (Death, as I see it in Scripture, is less like going to sleep forever and more like being pulled off the playing field.)

 I do not believe that every single one of the Amalekites Saul was ordered to kill was hell-bound by virtue of being an Amalekite. 

Thus, I believe the little ones ("Age of accountability" and all that...) and those among the Amalekites who served God are in Heaven to this day, while those among them who were evil now suffer a fate that I myself deserve.

c) My worthiness no longer matters.
Though I don't deserve heaven or God's love or anything at all, I don't have to squirm around like a pus-filled worm, either. Some people feel the need to behave according to their "worthiness" instead of their position.  The thing is, because this whole life's all undeserved, we can freely enjoy it without worrying about whether we've earned it or not.

 We pus-filled worm-people are, according to Scripture, God's children, friends and  crowned priests. We are these things not because we're cool enough, but because God's love for us is big enough. Our position with God far exceeds our worthiness. So, though I am a colossal charity case, I made it into the yearbook. Even though I'm adopted, I am in the King's will. I hold the position of one that the God of All Things felt the need to sacrifice Himself for.


2) Grace Orientation and the People Around Me.
I've mentioned in previous posts that I sometimes have a hard time with other Christians. Making what progress I have has been little more than an long-term exercise in getting over myself. One of the steps on that journey has involved learning that, because we are all equally undeserving, we are also equally unfit to complain about the company God keeps.

So, while I have a responsibility to Scriptural accountability, I have a greater responsibility show folks the kind of love and grace I've been shown.


Beyond that, if my worthiness is moot, there is not a person, a task or a thing in this world I am too cool for. If  I'm not cool enough for Heaven; why would I be too cool to hang out with this or that uncool guy? Why would I be too cool to do this or that task? Why would I be too cool to talk about this or that flaw I have? (This lesson brought me to a place of candidness I couldn't enjoy before.) Why would I be too cool to help someone in this or that way?

If no one is worthy, no one is "better". (Me least of all!) No one is closer to the infinite love and goodness we'd have to possess to BE worthy. This truth leaves me no place for getting a big head nor any room to shun anyone God wants to show His love to.


I put it this way some time ago on Facebook:

"Grace is the messy thing that puts murderers on equal footing with priests - sex offenders with humanitarians. With grace, all things are found not in our merit, but God's. It's messy because our ideas on who 'deserves' forgiveness are suddenly false."

There's more to this -  a lot more. If you want to see what I mean, study some of the Bible and spend the whole time remembering that it's all grace.

-isaac

The Good Man -or- My Kitty Genovese Moment

I feel like this post requires a disclaimer because, in the telling of this story, it will seem like I'm accusing some people of wrongdoing. I hope you will believe me when I say that I'm not. The only person I can point fingers at is myself. Whether anyone else present for the happenings listed here has any sin to confess is between that person and God. It is clear, for my part, that I knew the good I ought have done and failed to do it. (Ja. 4:17)

I'm going on a mission trip in a few months. It won't be a six-month adventure like Uganda, but a two-week stint in Los Angeles. My church has sent a team to the City of Angels every summer for the past three years, starting when the drug wars in Mexico made their former jaunts to Tijuana seem unwise. I've had the good fortune of being able to attend each of these annual trips; so this will be my fourth visit to LA's Dream Center. 

The upcoming trip's had me thinking about last year's visit, which has, in turn, had me mulling over the nature of courage, the ideals of chivalry and whether I will ever be the man I sometimes like to think I am.

We were on Skid Row one afternoon last year, talking and praying with the folks who call the streets and sidewalks in that part of town their home. As is normal for such a venture, we met a number of wonderful people and had some great opportunities to talk a bit about how God loves us and hear a lot about how He works in the lives of people on the street. 

As our group rounded a corner, a man approached us and suggested we cross the street. "There's some crazy guy with a knife up ahead." he explained.

We moved in the direction he pointed us and continued praying and talking our way down the road. As we approached the far end of the block, we found the knife-wielding man we'd been warned about.

He was dressed in the oversize, barely-stays-on sort of clothing gangsters wear these days. His pale complexion and light-coloured clothes made me wonder if he'd only arrived in sunny California recently. The man was clearly under the influence of something heavy; despite his size (Which was approximately "Refrigerator"), his staggering steps and jerky movements made it seem like a strong gust of wind might send him headlong. As people passed, he grabbed them, threatened them with a knife and took whatever they had. A man in a wheelchair tried to stop him, to no avail.

 Our group stopped and watched the proceedings. Someone went into the office building we'd gathered in front of and asked the security guard if anyone had called the police. They had. 

A young lady came around the corner opposite us and, seeing the large gangster with a knife, tried to sneak behind him. He turned as she approached him and grabbed her hair. I suddenly felt very anxious.

We have to do something!

He pushed her up against a wall and waved the knife in her face. I wondered if we were about to witness a murder.


Why aren't we doing something?

I looked at our leader. Ex military. I saw another man in our group. Also ex military. I saw one of the "dads" in our church, a man whose physical prowess makes me feel like a bum even when we're sitting in a van. I saw two teens in our group who grew up in a military family. I considered myself - not much to look at, but with some weight to toss around.

He slapped her across the face. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.

We could take him, no problem. Why aren't we doing anything?

I wanted to run across the street, pull that drunken gangster's pants down and push him over. But I didn't. 

He took her purse.

I wanted to grab the refrigerator-man from behind and toss him off the elevated sidewalk. Instead, I waited for our leader to make a move. 

He slapped her again.

By the time the police arrived (something like two minutes later) and arrested the gangster, the girl had been sent away bruised and weeping. No one comforted her.

As we left the scene, my punched-in-the-gut feeling grew. One girl turned to me and said, "That was pretty intense, huh?" I mumbled some half-hearted reply.

What sort of person am I, I wondered, that I can watch a young girl suffer assault at the hands of an evil man and do nothing to stop him? What sort of godly man am I, that I will not risk injury to aid those weaker than me? What sort of Christ do I suppose I  serve, that, on a mission to help the hurting, I stand and observe while people are hurt? Why didn't I act? Why did I just stand there and wait for someone to give me permission to do the right thing?

For the next day or so, I found myself in a foul mood. I spent a dis-ordinate amount of time on the verge of tears, so completely unimpressed with myself that I wanted only to be alone until I'd sorted myself out. Unfortunately (Or maybe it was fortunate, after all.), the Dream Center has a rule against going places alone; so I was forced to inflict myself upon my team-mates regardless.

A few of them tried, as gently as ever I've seen, to discuss what had happened and find out what was bothering me. Some seemed to think I'd simply been troubled by the violence of what occurred. To be honest, I feared discussing it with them because I worried I might be told the last thing I needed to hear - that I was somehow right to stay on our side of the street.

I worried that I'd be told that following our leader's example was the best thing to do. After all, he is ex-military; so he'd best know what to do in a conflict like that.  Besides, he was in charge; and we have a responsibility to respect and follow our authorities. 

But a large man was hurting someone! Isn't there something universally wrong about letting that happen? Wouldn't it be better to have helped and get yelled at later than to stand there and let him slap her around? Don't I have a responsibility to fight oppression and protect hose who need protecting?

I worried I might be reminded that the man of Frigidaire proportions was versed in "street life" and armed with a blade. Had things taken an ill turn, I could have died.


She would have been worth dying for, right? Jesus died for her just as much as He died for me; what makes my life more valuable than His? Isn't part of the Christian ideal that we consider others as more important than ourselves? (Pp 2:3)

The bottom line is, though I'd long hoped that I should be the sort of man who helps others in trouble, I failed to help when it counted. No amount of writing about the ills of the indifferent observer would make me a man of action. Only action ever will.

When I returned home, I met with some of my friends and discussed what had transpired. They told me exactly what I had needed to hear:  

Yeah, you screwed up. You should have helped her; and your failure to do so means that you're not nearly as bad-[asterisk] as you like to think you are. Yeah, you need to work on that. We love you, sir; and we have faith that, next time, you'll know what to do.

I try to boil down the lessons I learn into phrases or statements that help me remember them when it counts. After chewing on this for a while, I wrote down a sentence that would ensure the point stuck with me:

"The good man who waits for others to do the good he can do is not a good man."

The Monsignor, at the opening scene of The Boondock Saints, put it this way: 

"Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men!"

Once again, I need to stress that this is a story about my sin - about my colossal failure to do what I should have. I know that my thoughts on this topic could be a Romans 14 sort of thing , a grey area in the vast tapestry of theology; so I cannot pretend it was anyone else's responsibility to help that poor girl. 

If only I felt that call to do something, the one hero she had that day was too busy waiting for someone else to make a move.

-isaac

Memento Mori and the Art of Quoting Chris Rock

There's a lot of talk, these days, about living as though you're on the verge of death. People like to sing about, write about and even post inspirational pictures in the internet encouraging this one idea.

I've had little choice but to ponder the sentiment over the past few months because I hear that Kris Allen song at work a lot and one of my friends showed me this quote:

“You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it's your last. Bull[stuffing]. Life is long. You're probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you're gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years.”
-Chris Rock

A deep thinker...

These contrasting ideas brought me to a sort of mental crossroads. I believe in living life without many of the worries and fears we tend to put upon ourselves. I believe in having grand adventures. There is a definite frailty to our lives. We are not on this side of eternity forever; and for some, this side of eternity is as good as things will ever get.

However, I sometimes also believe in being a grown-up and doing smart, responsible things that will pay off later in the game.

Some of you might have heard of a certain radio preacher named Harold Camping.

Remember this guy?

Now, here's a real-life story about people living as though they weren't going to be around the next day:

In the months leading up to Mr. Camping's predicted Judgement Day, many of his followers sold everything they owned to fund billboards, bus posters and even international campaigns warning the world of the coming end.  A group of 10,000 Vietnamese believers gathered, despite resistance from their government, to worship while Jesus came to rescue them from persecution. Seventy of them were killed for it.

On May 22nd, when Jesus had yet to do any appearing, some financial institutions released articles detailing how to start over from scratch. One article recommended that followers lie about why they quit their last job.

So, let me get this straight....

Here's the thing: Whenever I think of what I would do if I was dying, I realise how stupidly irresponsible I would suddenly become. I'd quit my job, give away everything I own, cancel my college plans and make a wonderful mess of my remaining days. I also think relationship dynamics would change. People would talk to me, think of me and treat me differently because of the suddenly thin thread connecting me to their world. I would be in a totally different situation, where a totally different set of decisions would become prudent. 

I COULD quit my job, because I'd be losing a lot of living expenses - namely, all of them.

I COULD forget about college, because letters after my name would be a means to a ministry job I'd never have.

I COULD have long conversations with everyone because they'd have the time and desire for them - I'd very quickly become a very different sort of priority.

I live in a world where, though I may very well die tomorrow, I have to act as though I won't. I have to behave as though my decisions will have consequences that I (and others) will have to deal with later. I cannot expect people to listen as though my words and thoughts will soon be lost to the grave. 

To be honest, I think this sort of fatalism encourages selfishness. If I were dying, I fear my life would suddenly become very much about me.

Then again...

There is a beauty in recognising the temporal nature of life in your daily actions. There is a certain grace to how your priorities shift - how people become more important and possessions lose their weight. I like how memento mori causes people to act with a fearlessness and boldness that's otherwise rare in our society.

So, which is it? Is "live like you're dying" silly or beautiful?

I think there's another option. 

If we want to make the most of this life - to be more bold with our love, to learn more and teach more, to see the undying value in things without price tags, to put people above possessions, to mold our relationships into the sort of bonds folks write stories about - I think we should change the sentiment. 

 If we are going to be fatalistic at all, we should live as though everyone else is dying.

If other people were dying, I'd listen - really listen - to what they had to say; and when I spoke, I'd choose my words with care and share only the best of what I had to say. I'd be more loving and forgiving of their shortcomings and more meek about mine. I'd tell people what they meant to me. If everyone else was that much closer to eternity than I, I would walk with humility, very nearly ashamed of my undeserved privilege of life. There would be no pride in me because I'd know that everyone else's time was more valuable than mine. I'd do everything I could to share God's love with them because I'd see this was my last chance to bless not just their time here, but their time there as well. Everyone I met would have an immeasurable worth I hadn't granted them before. Every one of my friends and family would be more important than any earthly thing I could ask for. I'd even keep my phone with me and charged, just in ca- 

No, honestly, that probably wouldn't happen.

My phone, in case you've ever wondered if I have one.

If everyone around me was dying and I was the only one who was going to make it to tomorrow, I'd make today freaking count.

-isaac