Crazies

I originally intended to write about the subject of anger (which is what I am dealing with in my life right now), but I will save that for another day. Today, I ended up writing about a few ways in which other people's anger or otherwise random outbursts/behavior have affected me. There's a crazy motif, of course.

I truly hope that what I'm about to write isn't insensitive. It's just my quirky way of processing stuff that's in my face.

Lately, the tragedy that happened in South Carolina has been all over the news. That truly was a senseless tragedy. That was hatred, violence, and evil unchecked. That act was performed by the type of person who could very possibly burn in hell alongside someone like Adolf Hitler. (Unless the shooter repents, of course. Nobody is beyond hope unless they just shut themselves off from it.)

It happened in a place that's supposed to be safe for everyone who walks through its doors: a church. The innocent people who died were simply having a Bible study, and they innocently welcomed a visitor into their midst -- which is exactly what you're supposed to do. I used to lead church small groups. A tragedy like that could have happened to me.

Honestly, a couple of people who visited my old lifegroup have ended up on the news. (I wrote about one of them previously on my blog.) One of them committed suicide after he caused a hit-and-run accident. Another one, if I remember correctly, was a teacher who got arrested for having sex with one of his students. Right before I was about to lead our group in worship one night, and while I was explaining that everyone was welcome to worship freely, he remarked, "So, we can all take off our clothes and dance naked like David danced?" I clarified, "Rated G." He never returned to my group, but it was a weird non-surprise that he got arrested some time after that.

So, you can meet all kinds of crazies at church.

Right before I found my current church -- a huge megachurch that provides lots of safe nooks and crannies anytime you feel the need to hide from the crazies -- I attended a church where I made a rather, um, interesting friend. (I've blogged a little bit about her before.) That was back when I was rather, um, naïve. She would sometimes sit by herself in the sanctuary with her arms crossed and a very ticked-off look on her face. I would ask to sit with her, and she would reply gruffly, "No, that's all right. You don't need to sit next to me." I would smile and reply cheerfully before I'd walk away, "OK."

One day while several of us were gathered at our Sunday School teacher's house for lunch, my friend kind of went off about one of the other women in our class, while the woman in question awkwardly left the room. I naïvely got involved in the conversation, which happened to be about race. Since I am half-Hispanic and grew up hearing all kinds of sad stories from my Mexican-American relatives, racism has always been a subject that I'm very comfortable talking about. So, I told my friend something to the effect of, "Oh, yeah, I'm half-Hispanic, and you're African-American."

That was when I discovered that not everybody appreciates it when you try to be politically correct.

My friend then went off on me: "Oh, don't throw that African-American crap in my face! I've never been to Africa! Nuh-uh! I'm black!" Naïvely, of course, I apologized and tried to appease her. I didn't think anything was wrong.

After our church slowly began to lose membership because of some stuff that was happening internally, she and I began to spend more time together. As our friendship progressed, I found out that she was bipolar and that she had lost at least one job because of an angry outburst. Since I knew what it was like to have mental-health issues, I naïvely kept pursuing a friendship with her, and she seemed to appreciate my company.

We finally left our church and each started looking for a new church in separate places. The first place I visited (and returned to a short while later after hopping to a couple of other places) was what is now my current megachurch. When I realized that that church had what I was looking for, I excitedly talked to my friend on the phone about it. (I don't remember if I called her or if she called me, but I do remember that at this point, she had become rather clingy, and I wondered why she was calling me nearly every day.) She complained about how she would never find a good church, and I explained that this new church that I found was the real deal.

"That's a white church," she retorted. I think I tried to explain that the church is open to everybody, and that I thought I saw some black people sitting in the congregation, but she kept insisting, "That's a white church." I don't remember all the details of that conversation, but I do remember thinking that maybe she was demon-possessed. I even asked the caller a couple of times, "Is this [insert chick's name here]?" She was like, "Yes, this is me." I also remember her cussing with the word "hell" quite a bit. At one point, I asked her to please stop saying that. She was like, "What's the matter with 'hell'? It's just a place. But if it bothers you, I won't say it anymore."

I was as nice as I could possibly be to her (I was a much nicer person back then; nowadays, I have a much lower tolerance for crap). But the conversation kept going around in circles, and she eventually started verbally attacking me. I tried to not cry over the phone. "White people just don't understand," she repeatedly told me condescendingly. I told her that she was insulting me, and then I hung up the phone after ending the conversation as politely as I could.

I grabbed my Bible and collapsed into a crying mess on the floor. I asked God, "What is going on?"

He replied, "I wanted you to see what she was like." Then He impressed quite deeply on my heart, "Friendship is voluntary." He was right. Until then, I thought I could be friends with everybody who crossed my path.

Thus began my journey of learning how to pick my friends carefully, weed out unhealthy people, set boundaries, and even build firm walls to permanently eliminate certain people out of my life. Yep. I'm certainly not an expert in this area, but I guess you could say this was like the shot heard 'round the world for me.

"Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul." (Proverbs 22:24-25)

Some time after that, she emailed me to apologize. My way out of the friendship was when she said if I never called her again, she would understand. OK, then. I was glad that she was the one who set the boundary.

A few years later, she ran into me at a New Year's Eve service at my "white" church. She gushed at how wonderful the special services (Christmas and New Year's Eve) had been. Of course this encounter was awkward for me (as are lots of encounters with church crazies), but I spoke to her as politely as I could, and I was glad that she was only visiting, because I truly hope to never see her again.

One very interesting part of belonging to a megachurch is that you never know who you'll run into. Our special holiday services tend to draw lots of visitors who regularly attend other churches, and I guess maybe some people like to stroll in to see the show. Which they're welcome to do, of course. I just wonder what my ex-friend thinks about my pastor's black son-in-law, the dozens of black pastors and staff members, and the myriad of black members at my "white" church.

Loneliness is a dangerous thing. It can blind you from seeing all the crazies and their red flags waving in your face.

"Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord; nor are there any works like Your works. All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name." (Psalm 86:8-9)

"Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, 'Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons...' " (Acts 10:34, KJV)

Speaking of being in my face, there are a couple of things about my current job that have been demonstrating and reinforcing some interesting things for me. Firstly, I've heard people talk for years about how God isn't a "respecter of persons" -- that if He acts/moves/works in one person's life, He won't show favoritism but will act/move/work in anybody's life. My boss is a perfect anti-example of this. The way we kiss up to certain clients kinda made me sick at first, but I think I've kinda grown numb to it now. I don't think we'll tell a client to their face that their ads suck, but we sure won't give them the red-carpet treatment in the privacy of our office. The people who rent office space in our building get treated like kings and queens, even when they are weeks late paying their rent, but if we peon employees make one tiny mistake, we will be corporately crucified for it.

But with God, if I stumble and fall yet again, He'll just nonchalantly smile and say something like, "I don't hate you." I don't get it. How the heck can He still be so nice to me after the stuff I've done or the way I've treated Him? I haven't done anything to earn His respect. And yet He's made me a princess in His palace, and He treats me like a queen. I don't think I'm even supposed to get it. That, my friends, is called a "mystery." That, my friends, is a reason to cling to His feet and vow to follow Him wherever He goes. That, my friends, is why He is stuck with me forever.

Secondly, there are two types of people who work in my place of employment: the big-picture people-oriented people and the microscopically obsessive detail-oriented people. (I fall into the latter category, of course.) Sometimes people will straddle both categories, which tends to create confusion and frustration. But in general, the big-picture people will show up to meetings after supposedly reading our periodical and declare, "It looks great." And the microscopic people will show up to the same meetings after combing the periodical and state, "On page such-and-such, there needs to be a period at the end of the photo caption; on page such-and-such, thus-and-so was duplicated from page such-and-so; on page such-and-such, the article was missing a headline," etc., etc., and so on and so forth. The big-picture people will be like, "Eh, there were some words on some pages with some pictures in between, so voilà, we have successfully published yet another periodical." The microscopic people will be like, "We have obsessed over every square inch of our periodical and have discovered a mountain of mistakes and a staggering amount of material that is screaming for improvement."

I think God is like both types of people simultaneously. He sees the big picture and is like, "Hey, Tirzah, you made a friend who needs somebody to love on her." And He also sees the microscopic details that no one else sees and is like, "Hey, Tirzah, your new friend is a crazy psycho who could potentially do a staggering amount of harm to your soul, and I would like to give you an opportunity to end the friendship now should you choose to do so." I think He shows His love during both instances.

(At any rate, it doesn't matter if you're black, white, brown, blue, pink, purple, green, or anything in between. God loves you, God wants you, and God wants you to worship Him. I was taught this years ago, but now I'm thoroughly convinced that He creates all of us differently on purpose just because He likes variety. After all, it is the spice of life.)

Simultaneously, yes, everybody needs love, and yes, I am thankful for all the security guards who work at my church to protect me from the crazies.

And, of course, I are a crazy, too. Rated G.