The Now of Job

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Job is an amazing character in the Bible. He was wealthy beyond imagining.

Job 1:1-3
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil. 2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3 He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east. (RSV)

He was righteous, even offering extra sacrifices for his children just in case they made a transgression unintentionally. They would all spend days together having feasts at each other’s houses.

Job 1:5
5 And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually. (RSV)

But then he lost it all.

Job 1:13-22
13 Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house; 14 and there came a messenger to Job, and said, “The oxen were plowing and the asses feeding beside them; 15 and the Sabe′ans fell upon them and took them, and slew the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 16 While he was yet speaking, there came another, and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 17 While he was yet speaking, there came another, and said, “The Chalde′ans formed three companies, and made a raid upon the camels and took them, and slew the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18 While he was yet speaking, there came another, and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house; 19 and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20 Then Job arose, and rent his robe, and shaved his head, and fell upon the ground, and worshiped. 21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. (RSV)

It is amazing that Job doesn’t complain or freak out when he hears all of this bad news. Notice that each messenger hadn’t even quit speaking before the next one came in with even worse news.

Remember how bad news is said to come in threes? He got four. All at once. He didn’t even have time to recover from each blow before he received the next one.

Then he personally is afflicted with sores all over his body.

Job 2:9-10
9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God, and die.”10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (RSV)

He praises God and accepts what is given to him. What a model for “being in the now” It reminds me of the story of Jonah. He praised God while in the belly of the whale. While in the middle of a bad situation, he praised God. He didn’t say “If you get me out of this I’ll praise you.” He didn’t know if he was even going to get out of it. In fact, just before, he thought he was going to drown from being thrown overboard during a storm. Things weren’t great, but he was alive, having been rescued in an improbable way.

Job and Jonah teach us a lot about accepting where and how we are, just as we are.

Waiting in the middle

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I’m back in the waiting room at the VW dealership. I’m waiting until they get the time to work on the car. I wonder why I even make appointments, because they always seem to be delayed. Back again for a valve. Last week it was gaskets. A month ago it was the battery. The car is old, after all.

I’m reminded of the Jewish prayer for use in the bathroom, about openings and cavities, that if just one of them ruptured or were blocked, we’d die.

I’m grateful it isn’t one of my openings or cavities that is ruptured of blocked. That would require a trip to the hospital, and surgery, and a long recovery period.

I’m grateful that the dealership is just 20 minutes away and not an hour, like the lady next to me.

I think there is something about being grateful that is good, but also something about acknowledging the pain and loss. This is my day off. This is really early in the morning. I don’t quite want to spend the money on this. We’ve spent too much money recently on this car.

So maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle. Not happy, not sad. It just is the way it is. Not forcing myself to be happy and grateful, not getting stuck in sadness and loss. It is, and being happy or upset won’t make it change or go faster or cost less.

Maybe this is what Buddha meant about non attachment.

Not wasting energy on transforming the situation into something it isn’t. Accept it for what it is, and understanding that what I know is limited. The middle way, of no extremes.

Compassion for everybody

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A lady came in yesterday and was really upset about a book that was late. She kept going on and on about how “He was supposed to have renewed it.” She said this about five times.

I had an idea who she was talking about.

I took care of the fine and advised her to get a receipt next time and check it. We are human. We make mistakes. But her account is her responsibility to make sure it is correct.

Because we were dealing with a book about non-violent conflict resolution, I decided to open her up. I wanted her to have some compassion. You never know what burdens someone is carrying. Remembering that helps in defusing situations. If she is interested in resolving conflicts, she needs this tool.

At least I warned her that I was about to tell her something heavy.

I told her that more than likely the person who had made the mistake was grieving for his wife, who had died three weeks prior. I gave this a breath’s worth of pause.

I then told her that he himself has since died.

I showed her the memorial sign we have for him.

She stared at it, and said that was him.

Of course he didn’t renew her item. He wasn’t there. And now he really isn’t here.

I wanted her to cut him – and everybody else – some slack. You never know what people are dealing with. You never know what burdens they are carrying. They might not even know themselves.

So many of us are old minefields.

Will power and won’t power

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It isn’t will power.
It is won’t power.

I won’t eat another piece of pie.
I won’t get a second plate at the buffet.
I won’t let other people control my emotions.
I won’t buy that thing to make me happy.
I won’t blame other people for my anger.

But when you give up something bad, you need to fill that space with something good. Otherwise the bad habit will come back even stronger.

For example –

I won’t waste my lunchtime. I’ll go for a short walk first.

I won’t watch TV all evening – I’ll write or read instead.

Your life is yours to control. Everything you do is your choice. How you respond or react is your choice. And there are repercussions for every choice you make.

Choose wisely. This life is yours, but it is short. There is no reset button.

Mental health day

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I’ve finally realized that my job doesn’t pay me in real money. It pays me in days off. That is part of government jobs.

And while I resent having to work another 14 years before I can retire, I’ve realized that I can kind of “retire” right now. If I waited until I was able to retire, I might be too infirm to do what I want to do. If I follow the path of my parents, I’ll not even make it to retirement time.

So I’ve started taking what in calling “mental health days”. Once a month I take off the Monday after I’ve had the weekend off. This means I have four days off in a row. I don’t do anything I have to do – I do stuff I want to do. I read, or write or work on art. I do the stuff I would do if I was retired.

I’m practicing being retired. But I’m also doing preventive maintenance on my soul.

Happiness is a front

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A Volkswagen bug is a car that brings smiles to people. People smile when they see it. I notice this every time I go for a drive. I think it brings back good memories from their childhood. I also think there’s something special about the shape – all curves and no angles – that is soothing to see.

But the new Volkswagen bug is very difficult to repair. It isn’t as easy as the original ones were. Apparently you have to take almost the entire engine apart in order to fix anything. The designers who created it didn’t think that it would ever break down, so they didn’t make it easy to repair. This means it costs hundreds of dollars in labor every time I have to take this thing in.

So behind the smile there’s a lot of pain for me. The bystanders don’t know this.

This is very true for a lot of happy people. They aren’t happy because nothing bad has happened to them. They’re happy because bad things have happened to them and they’ve grown through them and because of them. The bad things made them stronger. Other people see their happiness and it spreads to them. Meanwhile, they don’t know how much work was required to get to that point.

Let go

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You have to let go to gain. How can you get new things with your hands full? You have to take everything out of the room to redesign it. I’ve gone through a lot of cleaning-out recently, and none of it has been planned by me. I see it as a gift from God. I’m learning that if I can’t control it, I should accept it as being Divinely ordained.

God has a plan. And I don’t know it. I have an idea of what it is.

I don’t want to work for myself. I am afraid of the risk of standing alone, having to figure out to pay taxes on a small business or to trust someone else with it. So is that what I’m being called to? Or is that what I’m being directed away from?

More and more I can see the source of illness in people. It isn’t about curing disease but preventing it. Disease is just a symptom of a dis-function.

I like the shaman on Northern Exposure. He lived with his patients for three days, eating what they ate, doing what they did. He stepped into their shoes in the most real way. Only then did he know why they were sick. People have to learn how to work with what they have.

Feeding them good food while they are in a rehabilitation center is only part of it. They have to learn how to provide it for themselves when they get home, and how to make good choices when they are at a restaurant.

They will not have the stress of dealing with people who aggravate them while at the center. They have to learn how to speak up for themselves and set boundaries when they go home or to work.

It is about past, present, and future, all at once. This means addressing past trauma and mis-learned lessons in the present, to create a healthy future.

Marry out of strength, not weakness

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When you have half a person married to another half a person they don’t make a whole, they make a half. When you have one solid person married to another solid person they make something amazingly strong.

People shouldn’t try to marry to find their other half. They should marry to get even stronger. They shouldn’t marry in order to have someone “complete” them. If you have to have someone else to make you whole then you aren’t whole to start off with.

If you want to get married so she will cook and clean for you, you don’t need a wife – you still need a mother. If you want to get married so he will protect you and keep you safe, you don’t need a husband – you need a guard dog. If you want to get married so someone will cheer you up, you don’t need a spouse – you need a therapist.

Marry out of strength, not weakness.

If you marry out of need and loss and lack, then you will grow into that and get even more needy and even more empty. It will be like getting crutches for your broken leg. You go years with those crutches, and your leg never gets used and gets weaker and weaker. Then when the crutches go away, you can’t stand at all.

Private property

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It seems like people have forgotten some of the basic rules of what it means to be civilized. Remember in kindergarten the phrase “If it’s not yours, don’t touch it.”? That lesson apparently doesn’t translate to everything.

These days property owners have to put signs on the property saying “private property no trespassing”. Otherwise, if someone comes on to their property they are liable for anything that happens. This seems completely backwards. If it is my home and my property it isn’t yours. If I have not invited you on to it then you shouldn’t be there. Private property owners shouldn’t have to put a sign up at all.

Their “sign” is the fact that it is their property.

In whose hands?

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Some of us started talking about our deceased coworker, and I mentioned that his death of a heart attack at 42 just furthers my belief that I need to take care of myself. I said this to the coworker in my department who is obese. She has a Y membership and has been maybe four times. The last time was about a year ago. She eats the same way that the dead one does. About monthly she says she “really needs to go back to the Y.” And she never does.

She said “It is all in God’s hands.”

No, it isn’t. We have free will, and sure, Jim Fixx, the guru of running, died of a heart attack. People die when God chooses. But they have a vote in it. They can take care of themselves. As my chiropractor says, we can’t add years to our life, but we can add life to our years.

We are called to be good stewards of God’s creation. This includes our bodies.

The other person in the department smokes constantly, and is out sick a lot.

I’m afraid I’ll be left by myself. I’m afraid they will both die and I’ll be stuck. It takes a long time to train a new person. We joke “It’s all about me” is our phrase in that department, and that sounds self-centered, and it is. But it is true.

But there is something deeper going on.

To not take care of yourself because you think that it is “all in God’s hands” is bizarre. Let’s compare it with the phrase “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” You shouldn’t do something you know to be stupid just to test God.

Honestly, I don’t know why I bother. They are killing themselves, and they know it. But to drag God’s will into it? That takes their own power out of it. It means they are helpless to do anything about it.

What a life of victimhood.