Out of The Loop

I grew up in a small Arkansas town & attended a small high school. So small everyone was just a little too intimate. This means that what ever drama that began in 1st Grade, grew & magnified by 12th Grade. I got accustomed to being argued over at recess or at P.E. on who's team I would play. It wasn't because I was the highest scorer. I also grew used to not being invited to "those" parties or to certain events that all the other more socially acceptable kids would attend. By the time I entered college, I could smell a fair-weathered friend like a bloodhound.

Granted, it's been over 35 years since all this, but nevertheless I am still affected by such social stereotypecasting. And to be honest, it still requires a bit more processing for me to work through instances like this in adult life -- even if they are unintentional.

Like today. It's Easter Sunday. We are having several friends over who do not have family in the area & would be having an Easter dinner alone. So, we asked them to bring a side dish & we'd provide the meat & desert. I helped get things ready while my wife got the kids & herself all ready to head off to Easter church services (where she works as choir/music director). I had committments to a mens' Bible Study group with our church (the one my family are actual members of).

See, even though it was Easter & typically it may be expected that a lot of folks would not attend a Bible study group because of the holiday... I do just the opposite. If I have made a committment to something, come hell or high water, you can expect me to be there 99 44/100% of the time. I think some of this comes from my personality & some from my experiences of being "out of the loop" in my childhood school experiences.

Now, this Bible study group initially was a special group of men who met regularly to pray for our pastor (a "prayer shield" so to speak). It was "by invitation only". I understand the need for this.... however, when I moved my family to the area in 2003, I had keenly researched where we wanted to attend church. And this church was the one I picked....deliberately. So, I "hit the ground running"...ready to volunteer for whatever. Most pastors or churches would drop dead if someone like me decided to allign with their fellowship & would be looking for me like a heat-seeking missle every time they needed some help.

Not here. For 2 years, I just treaded water. Never really getting asked to serve much... I watched as others were asked...and I even repeated my desire to help out in any way. But it seemed that most of my pleas went unheard. Now, recently... the "prayer shield" sort morphed into a mens' prayer group & it was opened up for any men in the church. However, this small detail was really never made too public within the fellowship. I heard about it on the side. As a "by the way" comment.

Even though I did feel like I was still out of the loop, I readily committed myself to supporting these Bible Study groups. Once I began attending, I heard comments made about the "email that was sent out". I never received any emails about the group... I just hear about it "on the side". Again, more processing to keep my feelings of being left out of the loop... and more processing to keep myself from feeling like I had just joined a group of "fair weathered friends".

Now that was a quick background on where I am today. It's Easter Sunday and I've done my part at helping get the kids ready to go with mommy to her church where she directs the choir. I've gotten ready to drive the 20 minutes across the county to the place to meet for the Mens' Bible Study group. The church's email that was sent out a few days ago even had the reminder about the event.... When I arrived at the location... not a soul was in sight. No cars in the parking lot. Nothing.

I called the home of the group leader & got his wife who gave me what I have called as the "typical response" I've grown used to hearing since becoming involved in this church 2 1/2 years ago: "Well an email went out......" Okay... so the point is.....??

I'm out of the loop.

My spiritual gift is exhortation. And it's times like this my gift gets attacked by the devil who loves to fire up my natual talent of sarcasm & synicism. I have more email addresses than Carter has liver pills. No one bothered to include one of them in this email "that went out..." I have two cell phone numbers... none were used to call me. Oh, I was also told when I called to find out where everyone was that "yeah, we got to thinking that not everyone got the email about the meeting this week".

And just what did we do about it?

Nothing, apparently. And I even gave my email address to the group leader just weeks ago so I could be including in all the future mailings.

Sorry, my sarcasm is showing.

I guess it's times like this that really challenge my tenacity to be committed to things like this. Down deep, I feel that if I'm not that important -- that even after almost three years of committment to my church -- that I could've been told that a mens' study group (a group that used to be "by invitation only") was going to be cancelled because of Easter Sunday. I was still committed to attending even though it was going to be held on a holiday.

I guess it's just the price I pay for being so damn loyal.

Snowblinded

It's spring. It's supposed to be getting less & less like winter. In Pennsylvania, however, that is all relative. I was driving to work - a 31 mile haul, one way, each day, five days a week - at the ungodly hour of 4:41am as the snow shower rapidly escalated into a fierce snow squall. I had several mountains to climb & the lines in the road were getting dimmer by the minute.

Finally, they disappeared alltogether & left me with just the reflector sticks along either side of the road to use as my guide to stay out of the ditches. The last mountain range was the worst. And it was here that the snow was the worst. The flakes swirled all around in front of my headlights...neither going in a straight line or falling gently down. All of this visual stimulatoin was causing me to be hypnotized as I putted along at about 20-30 mph.

The 2-lane Federal highway divides at one point at the base of the mountain range. I am concentrating on merely keeping the car as close to the right side of the road without dropping over the bank. My mind is reasoning, "Should I just pull over & wait this out?" I just could not bring myself to that yet. It's not desparate enough. I have driven all over northwest PA living there for almost 2 decades...this little snow squall shouldn't deter my quest to arrive at my job faithfully.

So I pushed myself in spite of my instincts.

My headlights shined upon the sign that said, "Keep Right"...so I kept my car to the right, thinking this would get me to the divided highway. I could only see as far as my headlights would shine. The road was all white...as was the shoulder, the grass, and all of the other surroundings. Down to only 15 mph & in 2nd gear, I crawled along, staying to the right until I spied the two "DO NOT ENTER" signs that I recognized as facing the opposite direction of the opposing lanes of the divided highway!

Thankfully, at this time of the morning, there were no tractor-trailers or cars (which so frequently travel this highway) as I did a 12-point turn around in the middle of the opposing lanes & tried to figure out where I was & how I was going to get over to the side of the divided highway (without ending up in the grass median, stuck for hours) that would take me to work without the head-on collision. After 10 minutes of feeling like a rat in a maze, I saw my way & was able to continue on spinning & sliding along at 15 mph.

When I was able to make it to the mountain's summit, the snow squall was beginning to lose some of its punch. I was able to make out the highway itself & began my coasting down the mountainside in 2nd gear...tooling along at 20 mph. A little more than 1/4 of the way down, the lines on the road began to appear again & by the time I had reached the bottom of the mountain range, I was back up to speed at 60 mph.

Nevertheless, my little time/space continuim had left me with about 35 minutes less time to get to work. But at least I did get to work.