People Who REALLY Annoy Me

Not trying to be negative or anything, but really... some people just get on my nerves. Here is a partial list (reserving the right, of course, to add to it at any time):

1. "Customer Service" people who refuse to give Customers Service. Last week my car died in the parking lot at McDonald's. (Sad thing was, I wasn't even eating there... long story.) Anywho, Nicole and her mom happened to be just across the street at the mall, but we soon realized that none of us had any jumper cables. So in we go to ask the MickeyD's workers if they might be willing to share. We ask the cashier on duty, who, by the way, was not busy in any form of the word. She turns and screams at all the other workers, each of whom mumble a halfhearted "no, don't got any" in their turn. So the lady turns back to me and says, "I've got some in my trunk." At this point I'm wondering why she felt the need to yelp at the others when she had some all along, but hey, a favor's a favor, right. "Great," we say. Unfortunately, she wasn't done. "Yeah, I've got some in my trunk, but I can't go out and get them, sorry." Seriously? The other customers look at each other in disbelief. We all look at each other in disbelief. We look at her in disbelief. She gives a sort of apologetic smile and turns back to her oh-so-important-guarding-of-the-counter. Now, I used to work at McDonald's. I realize there are rules. I also realize that, in quasi-emergency type situations, the rules are made to be broken. "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't come around the counter to Heimlich that french fry out of your throat. There are rules, you know..." Geez.

2. People who embarrass themselves (and others) with completely irrational statements. Examples are numerous as the sands on the seashore, but I'll go with this one... I have seen one too many facebook statuses in the past couple of days blaming President Obama for the tragedy at Fort Hood. Seriously, people? You don't have to like his politics, you don't have to like anything about him, but really... to imply (or state outright) that he had anything whatever to do with that horror story is absurd. The guy was a Muslim. True. a) Obama is not a Muslim. b) As I told the kids in my class last week, you have to be really careful when throwing out blanket assumptions. "Christians" have bombed many an abortion clinic, but that doesn't mean that those radicals are representative of Christianity as a whole. Let's learn from the plight of Japanese Americans in World War II, and not overreach. Be angry at the individual who committed the crime, and not an entire race of people. Don't let prejudice take root in your heart. Nothing good comes of that.

3. Scrooges who don't like Christmas. This one is thrown in just for good measure... Santa Claus is coming to town, folks, so you might as well enjoy it!

Getting good at rejection

I have never been all that great at rejection. Perfection, I like. Rejection, not so much. If I can't do something perfectly, I'd just as soon not do it at all. I've done pretty well over all with my anti-rejection philosophy, but I've known for some time that once I finished this book, the ensuing agent-search-and-rejection process would be rough and painful.

I've done better than I thought - not even one meltdown crying spell to date - but I have to say, it's quite the learning experience. In school, if you work hard enough, you get an A. In agent hunting, you're entirely at the whim of that particular agent's time constraints, personal preferences, and whether or not her snotty nosed kid put her in a bad mood that morning. It's completely uncontrollable... and I DO NOT LIKE uncontrollable. You just have to do your best work and keep putting it out there again... and again... and again.

Today I got my fourth rejection. To date: One form rejection, the kind where they don't even bother to write your name at the top. One "this isn't for me". One "this work has merit, but isn't for me right now". And one "you are talented, and this is quite a commercial concept, but after much thought I've decided not to go with it".

ARRGH. And then there's the fact that it takes literally months to receive most replies.

I'm not discouraged (yet), and I realize that this is part of the process. "Paying your dues", they call it. Wow. I thought I was paying my dues when I spent three years of my life throwing pencils at the computer screen. But I know I can't give up; I've worked too hard for that. I'll just keep paying those dues. And hope that one day they return the favor.

It's never too late (until it is)...

Well, I am officially a horrible blogger. Drat. I promised myself that, once I started, I would not get so busy with other things that I wouldn't take the time to do it. But then - what with a difficult graduate class, several retreats, workshop, and a multitude of other life-i-ties - I did exactly that.

So... I guess I'll just have to start over now. And now is a very good time to start over. I've had lots to think about lately.

I found out today that my best friend and roommate from college has been very, very sick. In fact, she still is. That in itself has been difficult enough. But aside from the sickness itself, what has made it even more difficult for me is the fact that I know that I have not been the friend to her that I should have been.

We were inseparable in college. Our apartment was classic... the refrigerator was held up by pizza boxes, the air conditioner was held in the window by duct tape, the bathroom door was so warped that it wouldn't shut, and the roaches outnumbered us 200 to 1. And we had the time of our lives. It would take me through Friday to tell half the stories I would love to share here, but the bottom line is that we loved each other dearly.

And we still do. I still know that she would be there in a second if I needed her. And I believe that she still knows the same about me. But, as life and distance tends to do, we have let the past ten years or so allow us to grow gradually apart, until most of my thoughts about her are about how things were instead of how things are. I've thought about that many, many times, and I always resolve to change it. And I never do.

But today, when I talked to her about all the difficulty she's had lately, it made me realize with crushing force just what a powerful influence she has been in my life. She – and, very possibly, I – will never know exactly how much she has meant to me. But I do know this: I'm so grateful to God for the time that I have had with her, and I don't want to take her for granted ever again. I'm glad I still have time to enjoy my friend. I know that not everyone is so blessed.

A Thank You - 13 Years Too Late

A few minutes ago, my husband texted me to let me know that my (hardcover, embossed, beautiful) copy of Thoreau's Walden had come in from Paperback Swap. (I must digress here to say this: If you are not a member of Paperback Swap, you should be. It could literally be the best thing to be invented since sliced bread. You post your unwanted books, and swap them, free, for millions of other books posted by other members! A-maz-ing.) Anyhow, Walden reminded me of the very first English class I ever took at UNA... the class that began my lifelong love affair with literature.

My teacher's name was Rita Galbreath, and the class was Honors English A. We spent the entire semester studying Walden and Resistance To Civil Government (neither of which, I'm sorry to say, I had ever heard of). I had never read anything like Thoreau, and Ms. Galbreath was one of those teachers who made the words leap off the page. I can still remember the feeling of wonder I felt listening to her explain the difficult passages. It's a cliche, I know, but in that one class, Ms. Galbreath and Thoreau – together – opened up a whole new world to me.

Ms. Galbreath left UNA after that one semester. I never saw her again and I have no idea where she is now. But for what it's worth, I want to thank her. She did me a great service, and I will always be grateful. 

As a tribute to her, here are a few of my favorite Thoreau quotes:

"To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake."

"It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes."

"I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also."

"Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now."

"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."

Poor Lion...

I couldn't resist a picture of this....

Right, Off You Go: A successful Quest!

We did it!

Last night Nicole and I enjoyed a great evening at the UNA outdoor concert with Andy Davis... and as promised, here is our photo with him!

No starstruck PR professionals this time...

Lessons the Lord has whacked me over the head with, #5,287,452

Honesty time. A while back, a couple of the students at HCU (where I work) came by the PR office (more specifically where I work) to let us know that they were planning a "Student Gospel Meeting" on campus, and to ask if we would be willing to help them with advertising and such like. Outwardly I smiled and said we'd be glad to, while inwardly I groaned and made that "tsk tsk" noise... until they walked out of the office, at which point I groaned and made the tisking noise out loud. There were a million reasons why I, in all my PR wisdom, knew that this was a silly idea. For one, it's hard enough to get anyone to come to a gospel meeting anymore, even at their own congregations. So who's going to come to one without congregational backing? For another, the people who will feel obligated to come - those of us who work for the university - have heard more than our share of sermons. Working as we do for a non-profit, religious organization, we are overworked and overstressed... and this is just another addition to our workload. For another, it's the week of the biggest fundraising event of our year, so we'll be much too busy... And etc., ad nauseam. These were my internal observations.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I had been in Birmingham all day for a doctor's appointment where I had been poked, prodded, and stuck... tried to play catch up for the graduate class that I missed due to said doctor's appointment... and haggled with a book distributor that has made preparations for the big event this weekend a nightmare. I really did not want to go to this "student gospel meeting". Only my guilty conscience caused me to shove myself off the couch and make the trek to Florence. But like so many other things, I arrived to find that the Lord had a lesson ready and waiting for me... it just wasn't hanging on a string above my love seat. I had to go out to get it.

This time, the lesson was this... this meeting was something these students needed to do. As ministry students, they needed an opportunity to learn how to organize an event... to introduce a speaker... to mail out flyers... to lead singing, and prayers, and all those things that they don't always get to do at their home churches. They needed to learn, on their own, what things work and what things don't. They needed to make their own mistakes, and adjust, and to succeed. It reminded me so much of... myself.

All of a sudden, sitting there watching them as they sang and introduced and preached, I remembered myself, not too long ago, at the Christian Student Center at UNA. The girls and I wanted to have a ladies' day. We didn't have congregational support. We didn't know how to do - well, pretty much anything. But we wanted to try, and so Danny, the campus minister, let us try. He didn't tell us we couldn't, or that it was a bad idea, or that no one would come, or that we needed to do our schedule this-or-that way. I think he knew that some lessons we would have to learn for ourselves.

And we did. We learned that if you schedule a ladies' day from nine to three, only your mothers will stay the whole time. We learned that the PR advertising techniques you used in class for businesses wouldn't work with little old ladies from churches. We learned that you never, EVER try to make a million gallons of chicken salad, from scratch, the night before, or you will all be crying in the floor of the industrial-sized kitchen at 4 a.m. But all those things made us better, and stronger, and more capable. 

I should have been so much more supportive. I should have been proud that, out of all the projects they could have chosen to undertake, they chose to teach the gospel. Especially in the light of the sad news of the closing of Magnolia Bible College, I should have been glad that we have so many students who are eager and willing to preach. I should have been better. Our students - and I am so proud to call them our students - will be better, stronger, and more capable for having organized this week.

And one more thing... I realized, too, that I, one of the chiefest of sinners, can never hear more than my fair share of good preaching. But the great thing about God is that He keeps giving us room to grow, and lessons to learn. I'm so grateful for the chance to learn this one, and next time I will be better.