Smelly monkey bubble

Almost 10 years ago, when I used to share a blog with a friend, I wrote a post in which I compared employees of the mass media to zookeepers. I don't mean that as an insult whatsoever. You like to go to the zoo, right? You get to take a break from the routine of your everyday life and enjoy the animals. I mean, when the tigers and the lions and the monkeys look right at you, without any threat of death, dismemberment, or stampede, that's a pretty huge deal. Sure, it's a little bit stinky there at the zoo, but you get to walk away from it after a short while. So, visiting the zoo is a wonderful, awe-inspiring experience for you. But what about for the zookeepers? They're there every day. They've seen a side of the monkeys that they probably don't ever want to brag about. Maybe when schoolbuses full of excited children are touring through the monkey cages, the zookeepers are politely smiling while silently thinking, "Big deal. It's just a smelly monkey."

Throughout my career, I've worked at a variety of "mass media" places: a public television station, a newspaper, a closed-caption company, and now a magazine. I still think I'm a lot like a zookeeper. Sometimes when I tell people what I do, they erupt with excitement. I'm an editor and a writer. At the periodical where I work, a huge part of my job is deciding what ultimately makes it into print -- whether I politely send a contributor a "Thanks but no thanks" rejection email or whether I write the content myself. Sometimes I forget how much power I really have. Sometimes it's just like a smelly monkey to me.

That tends to happen when you get bogged down with details and politics and frustrations and trying to read your bosses' minds and wanting to punch people in the face when they tell you to hurry and wanting to strangle somebody for working too fast and now you have to fix their mistakes and wanting to verbally flog somebody else for having an extended personal phone call in the office next to yours or in the hallway right in front of your desk... all the while the clock is ticking. The deadline is here. The time is gone. If you won't get it done, no one will. Come on, Tirzah, look alive. The monkey poop won't shovel itself.

But it's all worth it when you get to see the finished product. There's your newspaper or your magazine in your hand; you designed its pages, and you think it looks pretty darn good. There's that TV show that you just put on the air with a push of a button, or there's that closed-caption file that you slaved for hours over; it's being broadcast to hundreds or thousands or millions of TVs now, and it wouldn't have happened without you. Of course it's possible that no one will ever know that it was you who did all that work. But you don't really care. Just as long as you produced the best product that you could, you know that you've done your job, and you can take great pride in that, in a good way. Just as long as the zoo patrons are excited about seeing the monkey that you spend 40 hours a week taking care of, you know that that's ultimately what matters there at your zoo-cage.

But sometimes the monkey can be seriously disrespected.

Reader, I probably don't have to explain to you how journalism, in its purest form, is very rare to encounter nowadays. Reporting just the facts, in a way that is objective and completely without an agenda, is incredibly hard to find. I wasn't a journalism major, and I've never been a reporter, so I don't consider myself to be a journalist. But I know what journalism is supposed to do; I know the purpose that it's supposed to serve. Unfortunately, that purpose is often squelched and tainted by greed, egotism, selfishness, etc. And I haven't even mentioned what social media has done to journalism. Seriously, why are you news websites allowing people to comment on your news story as if it were a status update on Facebook? You'll attract all kinds of haters who won't ever have the guts to communicate what they're really feeling to your face. And it doesn't seem to do any kind of edifying good to the readers to display those ignorant remarks on the internet, anyway.

People often talk about "the mass media" as if it were some estranged cousin who's goofing off in prison or something. "Hey, did you see what the mass media did this time? Yeah, I know. Their lawyers are hard at work keeping them off death row, so they're just partying away there behind bars. We're paying for them to go to college with our tax dollars. I think they even eat better than we do."

Yes, many of us in "the mass media" definitely do have an agenda. I'm not gonna lie. We communicate the things that we communicate because we tend to lean a certain way. Many of us lean very politically to the left and tend to embrace very untraditional things. (In case you don't already know, I personally lean very politically to the right (if you can get me to talk about politics at all, that is, because I'm really burned out on that particular subject -- have I told you lately how much I love my cats?), and my overt agenda is to tell whoever will listen about my relationship with God, which I hope is pretty darn untraditional. Sorry, but you won't be able to shut me up.) Frankly, if you would stop talking about "the mass media" as if it were the bogeyman, perhaps more of your leaning-very-politically-to-the-right children would want to grow up to have media-related careers instead of the more traditional ones like doctor, teacher, lawyer, etc. But that is just my observation and opinion. (See? Can't shut me up.)

But most of the time, we in "the mass media" are simply required to do our jobs, and we are doing so under a great deal of pressure from 1) our bosses 2) our deadlines 3) our advertisers 4) our potential advertisers 5) our clients 6) the readers/viewers that our clients are trying to kiss up to 7) trends that the world seems to be following 8) the fact that people don't want to buy newspapers or cable TV or a public-television membership as much as they used to. Ultimately, we're in a business to make money. Even chicks who work in "the mass media" gotta eat.

When I was a little girl, I don't ever remember saying, "When I grow up, I want to work in the mass media." I just wanted to write. Then when I got older, I also wanted to edit. After I began to follow God around like a lovesick puppydog, I ended up getting jobs in "the mass media." That's how I got here. I hope I don't stay here for the rest of my life, but I'm learning a lot, and I sure am thankful that it pays the bills.

So, I was reminded of how powerful (or how hated) my job is when I attended an important industry event earlier this week. I was listening to a presentation in which the speaker was communicating some highly technical information on a very specific industry process (I wasn't assigned to report on it, so I wasn't taking notes, but I was listening and smiling politely). In the middle of his presentation, I don't remember his exact words, but he scoffed a little bit and said, "The mass media keeps saying that this industry process is the next big thing, but in the end, we're still going to need people to evaluate the quality of the process." I kept smiling politely. If the speaker had known that a member of "the mass media" was looking right at him, would he have chosen his words more carefully? Would he have scoffed? Would he have cared?

At any rate, had very good credentials. He had worked in the industry for at least a couple of decades, so he knew what he was talking about.

But I've noticed -- at least, in my opinion -- that that particular industry is a peculiar one. As dependent as it is on modern technology, it can be very out of touch with the rest of the world. People tend to work in that particular industry for decades at a time, so they kind of operate in a bubble of sorts. Awhile back, I heard that the trend nowadays is to change careers every five years or so. I think anytime you change jobs, you grow at least practically speaking because you expose yourself to a new perspective. I think that's a healthy thing.

If you don't expose yourself to a new perspective every once in a while, you could get into an unhealthy rut. You could live inside a bubble, in a bad way. Outsiders could peer inside your bubble, realize that they don't want to join you inside your I-already-know-everything-about-everything bubble, and stealthily float away from you.

If you live inside a bubble, in a bad way, you could begin to believe very peculiar things. You could believe that reprimanding an employee by emailing him/her and CCing everyone else in the company "so that everyone can learn" or "so that we all can share the experience" is supposed to be normal. (The truth is, it's highly unprofessional.) You could believe that inviting your employees to openly praise or critique everyone's project is supposed to help everybody in the company improve. (The truth is, it alienates your employees.) You could believe that everybody is exactly like you, so you don't think it's offensive to ask a new employee if he/she has a green card. (I mean, come on.) You could believe that your precious little monkey is perfect, smells like a rose garden, and will always be better than all the other monkeys at all the other zoos. (But who wants to visit a zoo where the air is thick with the nauseating stench of monkey poop?)

So, the truth is, if you spend enough time maintaining your monkey at your zoo, you could forget how wonderful your monkey really is. Is it really just a smelly monkey? Or is it a miraculously living creature, and you of all people have been given the charge, the honor, the incredible responsibility of taking care of it?

I think living life in God's Kingdom can be like that, too.

"You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever, You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled; at the voice of Your thunder they hastened away. They went up over the mountains; they went down into the valleys, to the place which You founded for them. You have set a boundary that they may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth." (Psalm 104:5-9)

On my drive home today (from my mass-media zookeeper job), I realized that God -- the most powerful Being in the universe -- favors me. OH, MY GOSH, THE ONE WHO CREATED THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE FRICKIN' FAVORS ME!!! I am struggling right now to find words to describe this. The Omnipotent, Almighty God -- the only True God, who is real, who is there, who WAS, who IS, who IS TO COME -- wants me to succeed. He wants me, period. He is more than likely the busiest Being in the universe, and yet He is always available to spend time with me. He is the biggest Person in the entire universe, and He chose me to be in His family. He wants to be my Friend. He wouldn't have created me otherwise.

And He feels that way about everybody, not just me.

So, during the drive home, a few tears came to my eyes while some awe crept back in. I think maybe sometimes when you've spent some time "working" for the King, it can be easy to forget how awe-inspiring, how infinitely wonderful, how truly big a deal it is to actually be in His Kingdom. Sometimes He hands you a shovel and says something to the effect of, "Hey, little shepherdess, can you please help Me shovel some sheep poop? There's plenty of it to go around."

I don't want to just be another zookeeper. I want to stay in awe of the One who created the animals, the One who created the earth, the One who created me, the One who created the "Zoo" in the first place. I want to continually be amazed, refreshed, and restored by my God, the Shepherd who will never stop taking impeccable care of me.

That's my Daddy. He's the One who I follow around like a lovesick puppydog. He's the One who keeps renewing me. I don't want to create my own bubble and begin believing very peculiar things about my own little world. I want to let Him take me by the hand and continually lead me into new perspectives.

I think that will always be a very good thing.

(Sorry, but you won't be able to shut me up.)

Small baby maximized

Yeah, I know that's a weird title for a blog post. I've been thinking about a few different things that seem very related to each other now, so I thought I'd smush them together here in one post. I hope you don't mind.

"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin..." (Zechariah 4:10a, NLT)

"Who dares despise the day of small things, since the seven eyes of the Lord that range throughout the earth will rejoice..." (Zechariah 4:10a, NIV)

"For who has despised the day of small things? For these seven rejoice to see the plumb line..." (Zechariah 4:10a, NKJV)

"Does anyone dare despise this day of small beginnings? They'll change their tune..." (Zechariah 4:10a, MSG)

One Bible verse that I've been thinking about off and on is Zechariah 4:10, which I remember in my brain as saying, "Do not despise the day of small beginnings," but as you can see, I had trouble finding that exact wording in any Bible translation/paraphrase. From what I understand, the context of this passage is talking about the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem. I mean, you can't just rebuild an entire temple overnight, right? You gotta start out small. There ain't no shame in that. In fact, God really seems to like that.

But I think that exact "Do not despise the day of small beginnings" wording was drilled into my skull when I was in college in the mid-1990s (I think before most of the abovementioned translations/paraphrases were written), more than likely by my college pastor. I've blogged about him before. Not trying to diss him, just trying to be honest about my experiences. His testimony was quite linear. After he graduated from college with a business degree, he struggled financially because he felt called to go into the ministry, and he earned a meager living for a while mowing people's lawns before he started his ministry, and voilà -- you, too, can find and achieve your life's purpose in a few short months. And if you call the number on your screen in the next 10 minutes, we'll put you on the next missionary boat to China! Raucous applause!

Anyway, in my opinion, the good part about being part of his ministry and hearing his testimony was learning that it's OK to start out small, especially when you're fresh out of college, ridiculously arrogant and naïve, and you expect your life to be handed to you on a silver platter, instantly and pain-free.

But the bad part about it was getting the impression that that short, intense struggle only needs to happen once and that if it doesn't happen that way exactly, there's something wrong with you.

I've had way more than just one season of "small beginnings" in my life. I've had to take way more than just one entry-level job throughout my career. I've had to move my way up from rock bottom on way more than one occasion. I've had to start completely over in life way more than once. Frankly, sometimes it gets old. But sometimes -- especially when you have to rip yourself away from a very unhealthy situation that you can't fix any other way -- it's the most refreshing, healing thing you can do.

I'm sure there are some people, like my college pastor, who only have "small beginnings" once, learn everything they need to learn from it, and then live happily ever after. There's definitely nothing wrong with that. If that's the path that God leads you on, please go for it, and give it everything you've got. But I've discovered that that doesn't happen with everybody, and I daresay that God may not necessarily intend for it to happen with everybody.

Take my job, for example. Yet again, I've found myself in a situation where I'm treated like some kid who doesn't know what she's doing, and I've walled myself off from my coworkers so that they hopefully won't be able to see how unhappy I am there (so that it will be that much sweeter and sneakier for me when I drop the two-week-notice bomb someday -- raucous applause!). One day, I was asking God what the deal was. Why do I keep finding myself in these bad job situations? (Thankfully, this current job isn't as bad as the previous horror movie that put me back into therapy.) Is it me? What is it about me that needs to change? What lesson am I not learning?

I don't remember His exact words, but God was basically like, "When you're painting a house, you need to give it more than one coat." Of course.

He was also talking to me awhile back about double-dipping, kinda like an ice-cream cone. You want a mouthful of different flavors? You can dip your cone in chocolate... then maybe butterscotch... then maybe strawberry... then maybe something citrusy... and so on and so forth.

So, maybe (hopefully) in my case, I'm not a total spiritual slob who keeps neglecting to learn her lessons and who will be stuck in the wilderness forever and be denied her happily ever after. Maybe in my case, God wants to build me, then change His mind and rearrange the furniture, then change His mind again and remodel, then change His mind again and tear it down completely, then repair the cracks in the foundation, then rebuild again, and then re-rebuild to repair damage that occurred during a bad fire or a bad storm, then paint and repaint, then change His mind and paint some more, then sandblast it, polish it, make sure it shines so that He can see His face in it... and so on and so forth.

I'm hoping that's the case. We shall see. Meanwhile, I shall continue to learn how to work with people who I don't like while functioning in an environment that I can't change.

About five years ago, I took the Clifton StrengthsFinder test through my church. One of the five strengths that I have is Maximizer which, according to the book Living Your Strengths, means that I "seek to transform something good into something superb." God has been nudging me (quite raucously) that I've needed to look into this whole Maximizer thing more, so the other night I dusted off the book and read it a little bit. I had an "OH, MY GOSH, I SUDDENLY UNDERSTAND MYSELF" moment.

Here's what it said about me being a Maximizer: "Excellence, not average, is your measure. Taking something from below average to slightly above average takes a great deal of effort and in your opinion is not very rewarding. Transforming something strong into something superb takes just as much effort but is much more thrilling.... And having found a strength, you feel compelled to nurture it, refine it, and stretch it toward excellence. You polish the pearl until it shines. This natural sorting of strengths means that others see you as discriminating. You choose to spend time with people who appreciate your particular strengths.... You tend to avoid those who want to fix you and make you well-rounded.... Some people will be intimidated by your perceptiveness and drive for excellence. These people may want to keep you at a distance, and you may feel rejected or like there is something wrong with you."

So, the other night when I was reading this, God was like, "I rest My case." Indeed.

There's nothing wrong with the way I make friends. In fact, if I decide that a whole crop of friends are unhealthy for me, and that I have to cut myself off from them and start all over again, that's OK. I'm not being a snob. I'm not being a jerk. I'm just being myself.

The Maximizer section of the Strengths book also quoted Matthew 25:19-21 from the Parable of the Talents. That's the parable where the boss leaves his employees with some money and trusts them to do business with it. The ones who do good business for their boss get commended: "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things (verse 21, NKJV)."

The wording that was drilled into my skull years ago was, "If you're faithful in little, you'll be ruler over much." I remember my cats when I think about this topic.

If you're faithful in little...

 

...you'll be ruler over much.

(Photos not to scale.)

First, I got Choochie (my little cat), and then I also got Macho (my big cat). I was ultimately responsible for one cat before I became ultimately responsible for two cats. I guess you could say that as a crazy cat lady, I started out small.

God's kingdom works similarly. First, David was responsible for a flock of his dad's sheep, and then after he became king, he became responsible for a flock of God's metaphorical sheep. First, Moses was herding flocks for his father-in-law, and then after the Israelites were freed from bondage in Egypt, he herded God's metaphorical flock around the wilderness.

Speaking of Moses in the wilderness, I've been wondering about something lately. The Bible is true, yes. It tells events that actually happened, yes. But there are a lot of details that it leaves out. I think this might be on purpose. I believe God sometimes keeps things vague on purpose so that we can trust Him with what we don't know. And I think maybe God also likes to honor people's privacy.

"For we have been consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance." (Psalm 90:7-8)

Moses wrote this psalm. That whole "secret sins" phrase gets me really curious. What the heck kind of baggage was Moses hauling around while He was leading God's people around in the wilderness? The Bible doesn't really go into detail about this.

Moses is my hero. He sometimes gets kinda dissed, though. I mean, he's the guy who made one little mistake in the wilderness, and as a consequence, he didn't get to see the promised land. One little frickin' mistake.

Lately I've been wondering if perhaps there was more going on behind the scenes. What we read in the Bible is Moses -- surrounded by a bunch of complaining ingrates who probably would have gotten on Mother Teresa's last nerve -- disobeying God by hitting a rock (so that it would miraculously produce water for the people to drink) instead of speaking to it like God told him to. I wonder if maybe this was more of a "last straw" kind of a situation between God and Moses. I wonder if perhaps maybe God had already been trying to work on Moses' violent tendencies for many years. I wonder if perhaps God was like, "Hey, Moses, remember that one guy you killed in Egypt all those years ago? Well, you can't solve all your problems by killing people, and you won't be able to run away from your problems all your life." I wonder if perhaps Moses smacking the rock with his staff made God sigh frustratedly and say something like, "Hey, why didn't you believe Me when I told you I would give My people water, and all you had to do was speak to the rock? Listen, if you can't handle My people with care, I'll raise up somebody else to look after them. They won't be able to handle the giants in the promised land if the only problem-solving example they see is a violent one. You will stay here in the wilderness, but no worries, everything is going to be OK. I love you."

Just using my imagination.

Last night, I performed the monthly maintenance on my cats (nail trimming, ear cleaning, anti-heartworm medicine distributing). I've done this with my babies at least a hundred times, so they should know what to expect. Macho crawled into my lap and stretched out one of his paws. Choochie sprawled out on the floor and didn't start growling until I got to her last paw. They didn't do anything wrong. They're cats. And they're mine. I've chosen to maintain them this way (I guess it's kinda like pruning John-15 style) simply because they're alive and growing, and they need to stay healthy and safe during the process. (And because I don't want the vet to give me another guilt trip for an ear infection caused by wax buildup.) It isn't always pleasant for them or me, but it has to be done, and all three of us will enjoy its benefits when the brief maintenance process is over.

I'm not exactly sure how to transition into my next idea, so I'll use a nifty Bible verse totally out of context.

"Nicodemus said to Him, 'How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" (John 3:4)

I know, right? I think God knew what He was doing when He created the way in which humans are born. (Being born again -- which is what Nicodemus and Jesus were talking about -- is a completely different story, of course.) I've never given birth, but I've heard that it's very painful. And that's with just a tiny little person coming out of you. You couldn't give birth to a full-grown adult human being. That would be absurd. When you give birth, it's to a brand-new baby creature. (Otherwise, it's called adoption, which again is a completely different story, of course.)

It's a baby. It's a little person. It's a small beginning.

And that small person isn't supposed to stay small. He or she is supposed to grow up. Growth takes time. The person who is currently typing this post has been growing for about 38 years, and she will continue to grow. Growth is hard. Sometimes it involves growing pains. Sometimes crazy things happen. Your baby teeth may fall out one by one in order to make room for permanent teeth. Your permanent teeth may end up falling out permanently. Your growth may accelerate during your teen years while your entire being becomes suitable to make babies of your own. Your growth may do a weird backward tangent during your mid-life years while you get extra piercings or tattoos or sports cars or other things that psychologists might consider to be evidence of a "crisis." Regardless of the type of growth, the growth will continue to happen whether you like it or not. Adjustments are constantly being made during every process of life.

But it starts out small. And then hopefully, after years of honing, perfecting, polishing, and shining, it lives happily ever after. Raucous applause!