Crazy

Last night I returned from two days in Ohio where I was visiting a couple of church partners. I have one week left in the office with my boss who is moving on, then I get on an airplane headed for Africa where I'll be for close to three weeks. Then 36 hours after arriving in Baltimore, Richard and I will go on a week's vacation in Lake Tahoe. I'll be outside of the chaos of HQ for four straight weeks.

Crazy.

I've been struggling with the question of how to live generously in this world where hand-outs create as many problems as they address, well-meaning organizations are run by prideful people who care more about their status than the state of the world, and I want more of whatever I have and fear we won't be able to pay our mortgage. How does one balance the call to give sacrificially with the realities of ever-increasing bills and ever-limited time? Something is wrong with this place in which we live.

My boss's boss forwarded me an email written by my boss's previous boss and current nemesis, who apparently doesn't think terribly highly of me either. Her words that questioned by abilities and capacity stung like a hornet, pierced my sense of self with an arrow, confirmed my deeply-held suspicions about myself. This woman--whose abilities and capacity are similarly questioned by many in the organization and who is viewed as a crazy cat lady by many others--somehow managed to throw my inner world into turmoil and led me to question whether I have any value or should just quit and let someone more capable take over. Whatever the truth may be, it's amazing to me that one person whom I don't even respect a great deal has the power to unsettle my soul. When will I learn to rise above such disturbances?

Last weekend, I had another encounter with the extraordinary woman I referenced in the last post. I'll call her LD. She asked me to take her to church Saturday evening, so Richard and I picked her up and sat with her and two of her friends. Two songs that had been in my mind for no apparent reason were sung that evening, which was astounding to me and beautiful and a little bit tragic. It again took us an hour to get LD out of the building after the service, she was so so intent on trying to talk her other friend into driving her an hour north the next week to go to a baseball game. As we dropped her off at her parents' condo, she asked if I'd take her to Sunday's service as well. I said I didn't plan to go but she could call me if she was unable to find another ride. Note to self: don't say things like that to a manic woman with no boundaries. She called a couple hours later to say she needed a ride; I agreed to pick her up.

So Sunday we were again sitting in the front of the large auditorium, but this time LD had nobody else to share her exuberance with, so I took it all. She held my hand and laughed with me and told me to raise my arms as we sang. Throughout the sermon, she frantically wrote notes to me on a pad of paper, trying to convince me that it was God's plan for me to work for her (as a personal assistant / co-singer in her nonexistent worship band) and asking me if I had suffered a great deal in childhood. It was, in a word, surreal. But after the service as we talked to a mutual friend who insisted I was a saint and a good person, LD demanded that I listen to this man because he was a truth-teller. If for no other reason, I could believe that God wanted me to be with LD at that moment so I would be forced to listen to two people tell me I was good, I was loved, I was God's.

I finally dropped her off two hours after the service ended. That evening she left a frantic message on my phone saying she needed a place to stay for the night because there had been an emergency and she was locked out of her parents' home. I called her back and, to Richard's great dismay, I allowed myself to be talked into picking her up so she could stay with us "just overnight," as I explained several times that we had other company coming the next day. Richard was, to put it mildly, concerned. Just as i was preparing to get in the car, our phone rang and a staff person from the church informed me that LD's parents were sitting in a courtroom at that moment awaiting an emergency court order for LD to be taken to the hospital for treatment of severe mania. The police had been to the condo twice already that day and she refused to check herself in. The staff person asked if I would please not come to LD's rescue, for her sake and for my own safety.

I don't doubt that LD is an extraordinary woman, but like so much else in this world, she was dancing on the line of sanity. I left her to dance alone. I hope she will forgive me.

Monday, on my walk to work, I finally introduced myself to the homeless man I pass every day. He seemed surprised that I would care what his name was, that I would take the time to ask. It was James. I'm grateful to know him.