Tuesday, December 31, 2013
The power of platonic touch for men
Two articles and a story. It is funny watching him try to hold the baby. He is so awkward. He did not grow up babysitting or helping out in nursery all the time. He holds the child too far away, at uncomfortable angles, but the baby is a smiler, and the baby smiles at him and loves him and wants to be held, and you watch him just melt before this beaming beacon of love, trust, and genial good cheer. This is why some babies are adorable: because they adore you unconditionally.
He is not married, has no children. Some of his friends are having children, but, like most young marrieds with small children, their lives change so radically that they no longer really intersect his, and they don't stop to think that he might like to learn about caring for children that aren't his.
It's not like he can offer to babysit to try to stay part of their lives; he doesn't have the experience and isn't comfortable with it (he might be if someone could teach him, but most parents have so little energy to spare for that).
It's not like he even knew how rewarding (and challenging) the simple act of playing with children can be because when does he even get to do it? Now that he does know, I wonder if he will be less afraid to help. He will certainly be more sympathetic about how much work it is. Maybe he'll realize how kind it is to volunteer to clean or cook or do the dishes or tag-team with a person with more child-caring experience to give weary parents some time off.
Maybe he'll become indispensable to his friends with small children because he will sometimes help them shoulder the burden and reap the rewards. Or maybe he'll never get the chance to play with babies again until/if he has his own.
She Must and Shall Go Free, Part 3
I went to see Derek Webb perform a 10th Anniversary concert for his first solo album. Here are some notes. (Part 3)
After the request and new song time, it's back to SMASGF.
7 Awake My Soul
I always think of this one as "No One Is Good Enough." Webb is starting to have increasing trouble with short high notes (his voice must be really getting tired/strained), but I'm amazed by how complex a sound two guitars can produce.
8 Saint and Sinner
People start getting clappy, which surprises me. A lot. Not sure why they picked this song to try, but God bless 'em, they tried. Anyway, we're all complex moral beings, and just because we're saved doesn't mean our relationships with others only involve our sanctified parts. We have to accept the saint and the sinner in each other.
This song always gets me a little choked up. He sings it with such sad, understanding warmth about the ways we enslave ourselves.
10 Crooked Deep Down
It's one of the most chipper songs about total depravity you will ever encounter. Webb says it's one of the oldest songs, one he played with Caedmon's Call but never recorded. He says it was "a song I wrote about Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Manson, and Me." He also confides that he's glad he didn't try to record it before he meet Meeks, who brings an excellent, almost hillbilly sensibility to the song. Pretty much all of the lyrics are funny and thought-provoking.
The final song is one that's painful for me to listen to. When I was really feeling pushed away from my white, upper middle class, suburban church and its lack of concern for the things God says he cares for in His word, when I was really feeling like I didn't want to be around his people--because most of the ones at my church service were all broken and desperately refusing to do anything but desperately hide their brokenness behind fake smiles and casual relationships--this song gently but very firmly reminded me that I am not able to have a relationship with him without them. We are all the church, all his bride in all our broken, jagged-edged body. If we love God, we must love the people He loves, and He loves His bride so much we really can't even comprehend it. This truth didn't make it any easier to attend services on Sunday, but it made it harder for me to just give up completely. God knows how bad church people are, really, and He still tells us to love them the way he loves us, despite how bad we individually are. I cry whenever I hear this song because it is so lovely and thoughtful and true, and it is a struggle for me that hasn't gone away.
It's later than I expected. As much as I would like to take him up on his offer to talk after the concert, to ask the questions about the things I'm not sure I understand, I instead get up stiffly and walk off into the cold night, carefully not slipping on the patchy ice, thinking about too many things, and humming quietly.
After the request and new song time, it's back to SMASGF.
7 Awake My Soul
I always think of this one as "No One Is Good Enough." Webb is starting to have increasing trouble with short high notes (his voice must be really getting tired/strained), but I'm amazed by how complex a sound two guitars can produce.
8 Saint and Sinner
People start getting clappy, which surprises me. A lot. Not sure why they picked this song to try, but God bless 'em, they tried. Anyway, we're all complex moral beings, and just because we're saved doesn't mean our relationships with others only involve our sanctified parts. We have to accept the saint and the sinner in each other.
"I'm not a half a man./ A saint and a sinner/ is what I am."9 Beloved
This song always gets me a little choked up. He sings it with such sad, understanding warmth about the ways we enslave ourselves.
"And now you would rather be/ a slave again than free from the law."
"And don't you ever let anyone tell you/ that there's anything that you need/ but Me."
10 Crooked Deep Down
It's one of the most chipper songs about total depravity you will ever encounter. Webb says it's one of the oldest songs, one he played with Caedmon's Call but never recorded. He says it was "a song I wrote about Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Manson, and Me." He also confides that he's glad he didn't try to record it before he meet Meeks, who brings an excellent, almost hillbilly sensibility to the song. Pretty much all of the lyrics are funny and thought-provoking.
"My life looks good, I do confess./ You can ask anyone./ Just don't ask my real good friends/ 'cause they will lie to you./ Or, worse, they'll tell the truth."11 The Church
"Good Lord, I am crooked deep down;/ everyone is crooked deep down."
The final song is one that's painful for me to listen to. When I was really feeling pushed away from my white, upper middle class, suburban church and its lack of concern for the things God says he cares for in His word, when I was really feeling like I didn't want to be around his people--because most of the ones at my church service were all broken and desperately refusing to do anything but desperately hide their brokenness behind fake smiles and casual relationships--this song gently but very firmly reminded me that I am not able to have a relationship with him without them. We are all the church, all his bride in all our broken, jagged-edged body. If we love God, we must love the people He loves, and He loves His bride so much we really can't even comprehend it. This truth didn't make it any easier to attend services on Sunday, but it made it harder for me to just give up completely. God knows how bad church people are, really, and He still tells us to love them the way he loves us, despite how bad we individually are. I cry whenever I hear this song because it is so lovely and thoughtful and true, and it is a struggle for me that hasn't gone away.
"'Cause I haven't come for only you,/ but for my people to pursue./ And you cannot care for me with no regard for her./ If you love me, you will love the Church./"
It's later than I expected. As much as I would like to take him up on his offer to talk after the concert, to ask the questions about the things I'm not sure I understand, I instead get up stiffly and walk off into the cold night, carefully not slipping on the patchy ice, thinking about too many things, and humming quietly.
She Must and Shall Go Free, Part 2
I went to see Derek Webb perform a 10th Anniversary concert for his first solo album. Here are some notes. (Part 2)
Kenny Meeks plays 4 songs, and they are all different, but there is something blues-y and wistful and full of longing and soothing at the same time about his work. Real Long Day was about the day his oldest daughter got married. Shining as Stars took its inspiration from Philippians 2. We're Gonna' Rise, "written and recorded in the way of old time street parades," actually got some heads bobbing and some off-beat clapping for a bit, which is really saying a lot from people in this undemonstrative state.
There are refreshments and restroom runs during the intermission, where they advertise gluten-free snacks and jokingly say they will also be serving extra gluten with a side of MSG and wonder if someone will get rich by finding a use for all that excess gluten. I am in a place unfamiliar to me, a place where they ruin perfectly good water by putting cucumbers in it. I do not belong here, or maybe I should say I don't fit in with the hipsters and the cool 30-somethings of the church. That has never really bothered me. I'm not here for them, I'm here for the music and to find out that Derek Webb is thoughtful and hopeful and not cynical. But cucumber-free water shouldn't be too much to ask for, should it?
The second half starts with requested songs. There are several I want to hear (especially "This, Too, Shall Be Made Right"), but I can be quite the coward in group situations these days.
A I want a broken heart
This song is from his second (and apparently worst-selling album).
B I repent
Also from his second album. He agrees to it and then realizes he isn't sure he remembers it. He refers to it as the anti-song to the one he ranted about last year. Not sure what he means because Stockholm Syndrome was more than a year ago, and his most recent album was instrumental.
C Mockingbird
He calls this the thesis statement on his third record, and it is a powerful and slightly tongue-in-cheek song about cliches in the church.
D Everything Will Change
This is from his new album that has yet to be released (I Was Wrong, I'm Sorry, I Love You). He talks a bit about his process as a lead up. In his life, songs only show up for a reason, and he says that folks who have been following him from the beginning have heard every song he's ever written. For this record, the songs that started showing up were about questions he wanted to ask the church and issues he sees in her now, 10 years after his first album about her.
He considers it a sister album, a later follow-up to the first album (the reason we are all here at this concert tonight). He said earlier that he could still stand behind everything on his first album and that he considered this fact important. He now adds, "If I agree completely with everything I said 10 years ago, there's something wrong with me."
And then he says some important things about cynicism. He says that this song will "put to rest the idea that I'm providing proof texts for cynicism." He defines cynicism as believing there's no way this thing is ever going to change, there is no hope, deal with it. "If I really believe in a day when all sad things will become untrue, then there is nothing that my hope is wasted on."
He says, "Cynicism is the opposite of the telling of the story of the kingdom." And this song tells the story of the Kingdom in a way that makes me think a bit about his Jesus autobiography song ("Lover") from earlier in this album.
Kenny Meeks plays 4 songs, and they are all different, but there is something blues-y and wistful and full of longing and soothing at the same time about his work. Real Long Day was about the day his oldest daughter got married. Shining as Stars took its inspiration from Philippians 2. We're Gonna' Rise, "written and recorded in the way of old time street parades," actually got some heads bobbing and some off-beat clapping for a bit, which is really saying a lot from people in this undemonstrative state.
There are refreshments and restroom runs during the intermission, where they advertise gluten-free snacks and jokingly say they will also be serving extra gluten with a side of MSG and wonder if someone will get rich by finding a use for all that excess gluten. I am in a place unfamiliar to me, a place where they ruin perfectly good water by putting cucumbers in it. I do not belong here, or maybe I should say I don't fit in with the hipsters and the cool 30-somethings of the church. That has never really bothered me. I'm not here for them, I'm here for the music and to find out that Derek Webb is thoughtful and hopeful and not cynical. But cucumber-free water shouldn't be too much to ask for, should it?
The second half starts with requested songs. There are several I want to hear (especially "This, Too, Shall Be Made Right"), but I can be quite the coward in group situations these days.
A I want a broken heart
This song is from his second (and apparently worst-selling album).
"faith in the bank and money in my heart"
"the cattle on a thousand hills were not enough to pay my bills"
B I repent
Also from his second album. He agrees to it and then realizes he isn't sure he remembers it. He refers to it as the anti-song to the one he ranted about last year. Not sure what he means because Stockholm Syndrome was more than a year ago, and his most recent album was instrumental.
C Mockingbird
He calls this the thesis statement on his third record, and it is a powerful and slightly tongue-in-cheek song about cliches in the church.
"I'm like a mockingbird:/ I've got no new song to sing./ I'm like an amplifier:/ I just tell you what I've heard./ "
D Everything Will Change
This is from his new album that has yet to be released (I Was Wrong, I'm Sorry, I Love You). He talks a bit about his process as a lead up. In his life, songs only show up for a reason, and he says that folks who have been following him from the beginning have heard every song he's ever written. For this record, the songs that started showing up were about questions he wanted to ask the church and issues he sees in her now, 10 years after his first album about her.
He considers it a sister album, a later follow-up to the first album (the reason we are all here at this concert tonight). He said earlier that he could still stand behind everything on his first album and that he considered this fact important. He now adds, "If I agree completely with everything I said 10 years ago, there's something wrong with me."
And then he says some important things about cynicism. He says that this song will "put to rest the idea that I'm providing proof texts for cynicism." He defines cynicism as believing there's no way this thing is ever going to change, there is no hope, deal with it. "If I really believe in a day when all sad things will become untrue, then there is nothing that my hope is wasted on."
He says, "Cynicism is the opposite of the telling of the story of the kingdom." And this song tells the story of the Kingdom in a way that makes me think a bit about his Jesus autobiography song ("Lover") from earlier in this album.
She Must and Shall Go Free, Part 1
I went to see Derek Webb perform a 10th Anniversary concert for his first solo album. Here are some notes. (Part 1)
The concert is in a tiny church repurposed as a concert venue with a stained glass taking up half the back wall, 3 shaded chandeliers, and 5 windows along the north wall with an interesting fish scale shimmery iridescence to them; great for diffusing the candle light from tables around the edges. Two fans spin up high in the ridge line of the vaulted ceiling. There are these huge, dark wooden sliding/folding doors block off the fellowship hall and make me curious. Sara Groves and her husband own this venue, and they introduce Webb.
What he thinks people are coming to the show for: "He can talk about politics and vent about the church, and maybe he'll swear!" He calls the songs on the album "songs without certainty."
The stage is small even though it pretty much takes up the entire short wall. Even so, Webb seems small standing up there. He's a tiny man, compact and fine-boned with his shaved head gleaming. Kenny Meeks is with him, a tall, sort of rawboned and rangy looking fellow who plays bass now and did the same on the record (along with producing it and providing the background vocals back in the day). This guy is kind of a legend in Christian music. I feel like I may have seen him at Alive '88 or something years ago.
They are making things up a little. This is the first stop on the limited tour, and they've never actually practiced together. You might not know this if they didn't tell everyone. You wouldn't likely care whether you noticed or not.
1 Nobody Loves Me
"I'm really glad I have a record from 10 years ago that I can still sing all of today."
"I don't disagree with a word of it."
2 She Must and Shall Go Free
He says this is an orphaned hymn, one where no melody was ever written for the words, so they just used one of the 4 basic tunes. He decided to give it a tune.
3 Take to the World
It's based on an Episcopal benediction and is the third song on the album . . . He points out he might arrange the album a little differently with his current knowledge.
"When Kenny Meeks makes a mistake, it's called a new revelation."
4 Nothing (Without You)
The pews are going to make my hip limping sore tomorrow.
"Kenny plays one note better than I play 10."
5 Beloved
"The word 'Christian,' when applied to anything except a person, is a marketing term, a term used to lead consumers to the thing they want to consume. It can't mean what they want it to mean."
"This song originally had about 12 verses" because he was trying to do a song about the life of Jesus. He edited it down to 5 verses, in the end, and I want to hear the other 7, too. "How do you edit the life of Jesus?" he asks rhetorically.
6 Wedding Dress
The first single he wrote for this first record (but at the time, he thought it was a Caedmon's Call song).
"Once you write it, there's no going back."
"It is still an offensive song for me to sing. "
"It's based on some of the most offensive parts of the Bible, which are there to offend us."
"Ezekiel and Hosea are designed to make people uncomfortable."
"I knew there would be some blushing."
"If I got up to read Ezekiel 16, I could clear the room."
"The comfort I got was that the most offensive parts were from the Bible."
"This was the song that got the album banned."
"They have every right to censor what they sell.. . . I'm comforted by the thought that the last thing to go would be the Bibles, so the offensive content is there in every store."
He talks about how some people write to him as if he is angry and bitter and cynical. And I'm surprised by how very much I need for him to not be bitter or cynical. And he's not. Maybe it's just his stage persona, but I really needed it anyway. He says that cynicism is what happens when you give up hope. And he hasn't given up. He still has hope. He still believes we can be better than we are, and he still believes God loves us even when we aren't.
The concert is in a tiny church repurposed as a concert venue with a stained glass taking up half the back wall, 3 shaded chandeliers, and 5 windows along the north wall with an interesting fish scale shimmery iridescence to them; great for diffusing the candle light from tables around the edges. Two fans spin up high in the ridge line of the vaulted ceiling. There are these huge, dark wooden sliding/folding doors block off the fellowship hall and make me curious. Sara Groves and her husband own this venue, and they introduce Webb.
What he thinks people are coming to the show for: "He can talk about politics and vent about the church, and maybe he'll swear!" He calls the songs on the album "songs without certainty."
The stage is small even though it pretty much takes up the entire short wall. Even so, Webb seems small standing up there. He's a tiny man, compact and fine-boned with his shaved head gleaming. Kenny Meeks is with him, a tall, sort of rawboned and rangy looking fellow who plays bass now and did the same on the record (along with producing it and providing the background vocals back in the day). This guy is kind of a legend in Christian music. I feel like I may have seen him at Alive '88 or something years ago.
They are making things up a little. This is the first stop on the limited tour, and they've never actually practiced together. You might not know this if they didn't tell everyone. You wouldn't likely care whether you noticed or not.
1 Nobody Loves Me
"I'm really glad I have a record from 10 years ago that I can still sing all of today."
"I don't disagree with a word of it."
"The truth is never sexy/ So it's not an easy sell.""Lord knows I've got something to say about every one of these, but I'm going to try not to," he says. And I think, "Are you kidding?! That's what we're here for. If we just wanted to hear the album, we could do that any time. Talk a lot!" But his voice is a little rough, and he needs a lot of water, so I'll understand if he has to talk less as the night goes on.
"So I'll do whatever it takes/to squeeze us into this wedding gown./ I'll say words that rattle your nerves/ words like sin and faith alone, now/"
2 She Must and Shall Go Free
He says this is an orphaned hymn, one where no melody was ever written for the words, so they just used one of the 4 basic tunes. He decided to give it a tune.
3 Take to the World
It's based on an Episcopal benediction and is the third song on the album . . . He points out he might arrange the album a little differently with his current knowledge.
"Take to the world this rare, relentless grace.""If you know Caedmon's Call from the radio, you never heard any of my songs."
"Know you must become what you want to save/ 'Cause that's still the way that He takes to the world."
"When Kenny Meeks makes a mistake, it's called a new revelation."
4 Nothing (Without You)
The pews are going to make my hip limping sore tomorrow.
"Kenny plays one note better than I play 10."
5 Beloved
"The word 'Christian,' when applied to anything except a person, is a marketing term, a term used to lead consumers to the thing they want to consume. It can't mean what they want it to mean."
"This song originally had about 12 verses" because he was trying to do a song about the life of Jesus. He edited it down to 5 verses, in the end, and I want to hear the other 7, too. "How do you edit the life of Jesus?" he asks rhetorically.
6 Wedding Dress
The first single he wrote for this first record (but at the time, he thought it was a Caedmon's Call song).
"Once you write it, there's no going back."
"It is still an offensive song for me to sing. "
"It's based on some of the most offensive parts of the Bible, which are there to offend us."
"Ezekiel and Hosea are designed to make people uncomfortable."
"I knew there would be some blushing."
"If I got up to read Ezekiel 16, I could clear the room."
"The comfort I got was that the most offensive parts were from the Bible."
"This was the song that got the album banned."
"They have every right to censor what they sell.. . . I'm comforted by the thought that the last thing to go would be the Bibles, so the offensive content is there in every store."
He talks about how some people write to him as if he is angry and bitter and cynical. And I'm surprised by how very much I need for him to not be bitter or cynical. And he's not. Maybe it's just his stage persona, but I really needed it anyway. He says that cynicism is what happens when you give up hope. And he hasn't given up. He still has hope. He still believes we can be better than we are, and he still believes God loves us even when we aren't.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Being Christ to the Creeper, Part II
Perhaps it boils down to this: What would Christ have me do here and now? This poor dude has fallen in my path, and I am supposed to be a good neighbor and love extravagantly. I'm supposed to meet his needs somehow because I am, as they say, the man on the ground at this moment. This strikes me as a tad absurd because, frankly, I would say this kid does NOT need ME to try to teach him to be SOCIAL.
I am an introverted, lonerish, antisocial person by inclination. I LIKE being this way. I suppose I could teach him how to repel people less obnoxiously, but obviously, he doesn't need my help overall with that. He needs friends his own age to help him understand what is appropriate and what is not. But let's be serious: how many 18-year-olds at anime clubs do you know who have the sensitivity to notice this situation and the ability to do something to improve it?
I'm not saying they're non-existent, but when I was in college as an upperclassman leading orientation groups, I had to reach out to some of my freshman to give them people to hang out with because their own peers couldn't do so. I tried approaching the leadership of the club to ask them to take on this responsibility (I figure it's theirs), and that . . . didn't really work. Maybe they need someone to teach them how. : ) But I was a completely different person back then in a different place, and I had that to offer. Now I don't.
So we circle back to the question again: what would Jesus have me do besides pray for someone else to intervene? Lacking any clear messages in 30-foot letters of fire, I turn to the gallery. Your thoughts on what it means to love my neighbor in this case?
I am an introverted, lonerish, antisocial person by inclination. I LIKE being this way. I suppose I could teach him how to repel people less obnoxiously, but obviously, he doesn't need my help overall with that. He needs friends his own age to help him understand what is appropriate and what is not. But let's be serious: how many 18-year-olds at anime clubs do you know who have the sensitivity to notice this situation and the ability to do something to improve it?
I'm not saying they're non-existent, but when I was in college as an upperclassman leading orientation groups, I had to reach out to some of my freshman to give them people to hang out with because their own peers couldn't do so. I tried approaching the leadership of the club to ask them to take on this responsibility (I figure it's theirs), and that . . . didn't really work. Maybe they need someone to teach them how. : ) But I was a completely different person back then in a different place, and I had that to offer. Now I don't.
So we circle back to the question again: what would Jesus have me do besides pray for someone else to intervene? Lacking any clear messages in 30-foot letters of fire, I turn to the gallery. Your thoughts on what it means to love my neighbor in this case?
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Being Christ to the Creeper
Once upon a time when I was younger and less physically broken, one of my jobs was befriending the lonely ones, the ones left outside the circle, the ones no one wanted. I would protect them, the pasty and overweight ones, the socially awkward, the prickly, the unattractive. Since I did not need friends or popularity or fitting in, I was free to be friends with those who needed friends but, for whatever reason, couldn't seem to make it with the regular people. I felt like it was some sort of gifting or calling, a way to use my comfortable introversion to love people like Christ commands us to. Now I am older, more physically broken and exhausted, and I don't have the energy to use this freedom any more, which is unfortunate because there's a guy at the anime club this semester who is starting to really creep me out.
In the anime club, I have always been there for the anime. I have never been there to make friends, be part of the community, or fit in. I don't live on campus; I'm not a student. I do not need any friends in the club to have a nice time. This has always worked out well (once the super-friendly folks have learned to leave me alone each semester) because it's good for these kids to make friends with their peers. I have not needed to actually reach out and show kindness to an outcast when I have pretty much nothing to give. With one notable exception, I have made no friends there, and it has been lovely.
Many of the folks in the anime club are a bit socially awkward. This stereotype exists because it is based in observable fact. Many of them are bad at eye contact and reading body language and understanding personal space, but they usually figure things out by the time they graduate. Most of them find their tribes, even the ones who are incredibly annoying and awkward. As a sort of maiden aunt, I watch all of this at a distance and am glad things work out, even if I am sometimes mystified.
This semester has been different. This semester has been incredibly uncomfortable. This semester there is a guy who hasn't found his tribe, and he seems to want me to be his tribe because all the other natives flee screaming at his approach.
I have never met anyone so terrible at understanding body language and personal space. He seems to take me scrunching up, leaning and moving away, refusing eye contact, and reluctantly talking brusquely in short answers when absolutely necessary as amazing encouragement to sit down, move cloers, be friends and talk and talk and talk about the same things 4 over and over and over again. (At least he hasn't used the words "scrotum" and "anus" since the first time he opened his mouth to talk to me several weeks ago.) He talks about his anime that he will make some day and its badass, junior-high-school-boy-humor-liking female main character and what he doesn't like about X, Y, and Z anime and about why he likes the Devil May Cry anime but hates Black Lagoon, etc., ad nauseum. (If you're an anime fan, this will seem even more annoying to you than if you aren't.) He does this to anyone who has a pulse and doesn't actually get up and just walk away.
Recently, because no one else will even talk to him, he has taken to following me out to my car, chattering all the way, and ignoring my LEAVE ME ALONE PLEASE body language and really fast pace because he is that desperate to connect.
I know that if I want him to leave me alone, I need to just completely ignore him and not respond at all. However, he is so lonely and sad that my old reflexes kick in, and I talk sometimes, un-encouragingly and grudgingly, because I don't want him to be completely alone in silence. He is so young and so awkward, and I think he may not ever find any friends if he doesn't come across the college student equivalent of the old me soon.
I probably don't have to tell you that the following me to my car thing makes me really nervous. Men I don't know in general make me wary and having to be trailed by one as I walk half a mile away to my car where there might not be anyone else around does not help. I think that I probably need to just have the creeper talk with him or ask the club admins to intervene, but maybe I've been living in Minnesota too long (land of 10,000 ways to passive-aggressively indicate things instead of just saying them) or maybe I'm trying in a sort of half-assed way to be Jesus to this poor kid. I mean, everyone avoids him, and that's really sad (even if I totally understand why they avoid him). I was hoping someone would take him under their wing and help him understand the basics of body language, but they haven't even this far in to the semester.
As maybe one of the few believers who attend the club, do I have some sort of responsibility toward him? Because I'm sure acting like I do. And as long as I sub-consciously feel responsible, I won't be able to just tell him leave me alone or ask the folks in charge of the club to intervene. Thus far, the best I've been able to do is drag my poor friend to the club to try to act as a buffer and escort to my car, and that's not fair to him.
So, Christians, your thoughts? Everyone, your strategies?
In the anime club, I have always been there for the anime. I have never been there to make friends, be part of the community, or fit in. I don't live on campus; I'm not a student. I do not need any friends in the club to have a nice time. This has always worked out well (once the super-friendly folks have learned to leave me alone each semester) because it's good for these kids to make friends with their peers. I have not needed to actually reach out and show kindness to an outcast when I have pretty much nothing to give. With one notable exception, I have made no friends there, and it has been lovely.
Many of the folks in the anime club are a bit socially awkward. This stereotype exists because it is based in observable fact. Many of them are bad at eye contact and reading body language and understanding personal space, but they usually figure things out by the time they graduate. Most of them find their tribes, even the ones who are incredibly annoying and awkward. As a sort of maiden aunt, I watch all of this at a distance and am glad things work out, even if I am sometimes mystified.
This semester has been different. This semester has been incredibly uncomfortable. This semester there is a guy who hasn't found his tribe, and he seems to want me to be his tribe because all the other natives flee screaming at his approach.
I have never met anyone so terrible at understanding body language and personal space. He seems to take me scrunching up, leaning and moving away, refusing eye contact, and reluctantly talking brusquely in short answers when absolutely necessary as amazing encouragement to sit down, move cloers, be friends and talk and talk and talk about the same things 4 over and over and over again. (At least he hasn't used the words "scrotum" and "anus" since the first time he opened his mouth to talk to me several weeks ago.) He talks about his anime that he will make some day and its badass, junior-high-school-boy-humor-liking female main character and what he doesn't like about X, Y, and Z anime and about why he likes the Devil May Cry anime but hates Black Lagoon, etc., ad nauseum. (If you're an anime fan, this will seem even more annoying to you than if you aren't.) He does this to anyone who has a pulse and doesn't actually get up and just walk away.
Recently, because no one else will even talk to him, he has taken to following me out to my car, chattering all the way, and ignoring my LEAVE ME ALONE PLEASE body language and really fast pace because he is that desperate to connect.
I know that if I want him to leave me alone, I need to just completely ignore him and not respond at all. However, he is so lonely and sad that my old reflexes kick in, and I talk sometimes, un-encouragingly and grudgingly, because I don't want him to be completely alone in silence. He is so young and so awkward, and I think he may not ever find any friends if he doesn't come across the college student equivalent of the old me soon.
I probably don't have to tell you that the following me to my car thing makes me really nervous. Men I don't know in general make me wary and having to be trailed by one as I walk half a mile away to my car where there might not be anyone else around does not help. I think that I probably need to just have the creeper talk with him or ask the club admins to intervene, but maybe I've been living in Minnesota too long (land of 10,000 ways to passive-aggressively indicate things instead of just saying them) or maybe I'm trying in a sort of half-assed way to be Jesus to this poor kid. I mean, everyone avoids him, and that's really sad (even if I totally understand why they avoid him). I was hoping someone would take him under their wing and help him understand the basics of body language, but they haven't even this far in to the semester.
As maybe one of the few believers who attend the club, do I have some sort of responsibility toward him? Because I'm sure acting like I do. And as long as I sub-consciously feel responsible, I won't be able to just tell him leave me alone or ask the folks in charge of the club to intervene. Thus far, the best I've been able to do is drag my poor friend to the club to try to act as a buffer and escort to my car, and that's not fair to him.
So, Christians, your thoughts? Everyone, your strategies?
Notes to a college student soliciting alumni donations
- Do not ask the stupid questions trying to get the alumni to remember the wonders and joys of their time at Cedarville. Our time of wonder and joy is gone, and it's been pretty well stomped on by successive administrations lacking integrity. Can there be a button to press to forward through that part of the conversation and automatically be connected to a responsible adult, so we can be really honest about why we're not supporting the school any more? Does the administration even care why alumni are not supporting them anymore, or do they just consider that the cost of doing (their view of) good kingdom business? Yes, those were good old days, and I'm sad they're gone and you won't really get to experience them. Then again, maybe you will. For all I know the same shenanigans were happening when I was a blithely ignorant student, and I managed to have an awesome time . . .
- Do have glib explanations ready! I suppose they might work on, um, timid and uninformed people who didn't think and debate and research for 50 hours before coming to the decision to stop donating to the institution. I was a little sad that you only had a glib explanation for the destruction of the philosophy department, but, really, it's not fair for me to expect you to know/care about the other high-level institutional shenanigans, and I can't see the alumni office expecting the alumni to know about it, so why would they prepare glib explanations for those? I know I had no idea what was going on at that level until my senior year, and I'm pretty sure you sound like, what, a sophomore?
- Don't play the pity card. Does it ever work? "Just think of the poor students you are hurting (by your rigid desire to only support ministries with integrity)" kind of just makes me mad. See the next point for a better way to handle the disappointment when I say I'm not going to give you money.
- Do explain that the money you're soliciting only goes to students and not to the administration. That's pretty important. I do have to think about that a bit. I do want to bring the incredibly high tuition you current students are paying down to something slightly less ridiculous. I'd also give to a fund for the faculty who have to buffer you from all this crap. Do you know if such a fund exists? And can I separate my donations to that degree? I might need to do more research on the financials, but the administrations shenanigans DO trickle down to the students, meaning you do get influenced in ways that are not quite, in my opinion, above-board. But. I didn't choose the school because it was perfect and I agreed with everything. I chose it because it was Christian, had a good academic reputation, and was also the cheapest with the financial aid I could muster. Maybe the students who made their decisions to attend for the same reasons do deserve my financial support. But the administration decides how to use the funds, so . . . Gah. Back and forth. It's good to make people think and start going back and forth. Good for you.
- Do not play the breezy, administrations change all the time card. This has been a concerted effort to move things in a particular direction through multiple administrators, and mowing down a lot of good administrators and educators in its path, and it's been going on for over a decade. I'm not sure that refusing to give my money will make the situation worse. Although now I wonder if that's why the tuition has gotten so high . . .
P.S. I appreciate how you didn't lie and write down that I made a pledge (which is what the guy two years ago did).
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