Twist and Shout

Last week I had to go to a lab before work to have blood drawn and various test drawn on it with results to be sent to my diabetes doctor in advance of my appointment next week.  The lab I go to is an independent lab and in all the years I have been going once a quarter or so I am usually the first one there  and rarely see anyone.   Last week however, when I walked in there was a lady in the waiting room waiting to be seen and she looked really familiar though I couldn’t quite place where I knew her from.  You could tell that she was trying to figure out who I was as well.  About the time I was getting ready to say “do I know you” the lab tech said, “Ms.  Wilsons “ (name changed) , you can come on back.  It was then that I remembered where I knew this woman from.  She had worked for the hospice I work for now several years ago when I was the business manager in Tahlequah.  To say she was odd is an understatement.  She was very strange and it became apparent after about a week of employment that she was not a good fit for the job we had hired her for.  Within a couple of weeks it was apparent that she needed to be let go.  That didn’t happen however because on the day she was going to be reprimanded for some very valid reasons, she didn’t show up.  She came in later that day and quit in a rather dramatic way.  Her supervisor was told she could take the job and put it where the sun don’t shine and the rest of us categorized by her as idiots, etc, etc. until our Executive Director escorted her to the door and told her not to return.  Shortly thereafter, we received notice that she had filed for unemployment and since she had quit, it was left to me to provide the documentation regarding the situation and “fight the claim”.  Which I did.  Successfully.

 I didn’t take her threats lightly when she called upon hearing that she had been denied and for weeks the office was on high alert because she was obviously “unstable.”  I had totally forgotten about all of that until the lab tech called her name.  She had dyed her hair, from blonde to black and that was what had thrown me off.   Sitting in the waiting room awaiting my turn I heard her telling the lab tech about the “b” word in the waiting room that had lied and gotten her fired and then had the nerve to lie so she wouldn’t get unemployment and the health issues the trauma of it all had called her and the disability she had to go on from the nerves, etc. etc. etc.  Not at all what happened but ….I was about to leave and go to my car and wait until she left the premises when she burst thru the waiting area door and screamed at me “are you proud of yourself Missy?  You have ruined my life.”  At first I didn’t know what to say because I honestly had never had a cross word with this woman.  I had kept my professional demeanor even on the phone with the Unemployment investigator during a 3 way call in which I was being told the lies that had been told about me and my co-workers.  I decided to say nothing.  When she saw that she was not going to get a response from me, she began to quote  and shout “Bible verses” at me.  The one in particular that stood out was the one about “bearing false witness against someone.”  I hadn’t.  She also through in one about “do unto  others” and one about deceitful tongues  and then she slammed out the door.  As she left, the lab tech started to laugh out loud. “ She’s a character she said.  She’s got lawsuits going on with everyone and their dog.  Talk about false witnessing. “ I shrugged. 

Later as I was driving to work I was thinking about the incident, still a little rattled that someone had created a scenario in which I was the BIG BAD CORPORATE MEANIE….so untrue. I am a wimp but don’t tell anyone.  LOL  And what I was thinking was about how people use the Bible sometime to back themselves up on something they believe but have it so twisted and out of context or downright wrong .

Now, I have been known to quote the Bible from time to time in my blog and so it made me stop and think about whether I had done the same thing from time to time to back up an opinion or make a point of my own.  And then I remember that a couple nights before I had said “and the truth will set you free” to Joe in regard to a work dilemma we were talking about and he had said “or get you fired” and I had laughed.  The truth is, we all pick and choose at times what fits our own circumstance and helps to justify our actions in a situation.   Just like the wacko congressman from Kansas who used one of the Psalms to back up his email that basically asked people to pray for our President to be gone saying “Psalm 109:8 says, “Let his days be few and brief; and let others step forward to replace him.”  In his mind, his hatred for Obama has caused him to seize on a Bible verse and twist its meaning to back up his opinion.

Joe and I were talking about the difficult choices that people are forced to make sometime ( I know, he’s a deep thinker and I reside in the world of lollipops and sunshine, lol) and he asked if I had seen the movie Sophie’s choice which I hadn’t because I knew that there was a scene where she had to choose between her children and the thought of that and watching someone have to do that, even in  a movie was so awful to me that I chose not to see the movie.  Anyway, he brings up the clip on the computer where she has to choose…yes I told him to show me…and what struck me was not the pain and the horrific choice she had to make but the words of the bad guy in the scene who asks if she believes in God and then uses the verse in the Bible about suffer the little children to torment her with.  “Suffer the little children to come unto me” suddenly became his justification for her to have to give up one of her children.  

Then on Friday night I was watching some dumb movie on Bravo tv which is the only channel I have now that I have cut off my cable (and for some reason that channel is still working) and it was a comedy and there were these 2 guys on a porch and one was smoking pot and the other didn’t want any and the pot smoker started trying to convince the other to do it by saying it was ok.  That God wouldn’t have put pot on the earth if he didn’t want for us to smoke it; after all what else was it good for.  I had to laugh out loud.

I am guilty of taking Bible verses out of context and turning them into something totally different from what they were intended.  For example, when I taught the weight loss class years ago at my Church, the Pray your Butt off class as we jokingly called it, part of the lesson plan was a memory verse each week. So I would find a verse of the Bible, twist it just enough to make it fit the circumstance we would be covering that week and present it as such, not meaning any harm or disrespect of course.

For example, each week I asked for a weigh out moment.  And it was a play on the words from the Bible And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up ..1^st Corinthians 10:13 I used this verse to encourage the class to  walk away from donuts and junk food and things that were not good for them.  So for example, a weigh out moment might be when you had exactly the amount in change for the vending machine to get your candy bar but when you put it in the machine didn’t count a dime or a nickel and so you had to go without.  That was a “weigh out moment” , a moment where God had provided a way out so that we could stick to our diet. 

Pastor Rusty spoke a little about taking the Bible too literally this morning at Church.  The verse about cutting off your arms and plucking out your eyes.   If you took that literally there would be  a lot of limbless, eyeless people walking around.   The people who believe in capital punishment use the “eye for an eye verse a lot, while the people against it often quote “thou shall not kill”.  And then there’s the spanking/anti-spanking debate for which the Spare the Rod, spoil the Child proverb is usually quoted.

The term “cafeteria Christian” comes to mind.  When I was a kid, some of the preachers at the Churches I tagged along with neighbors to had me so scared of God that I could hardly function.  Some of these preacher’s interpretations of the scriptures were so cut and dried that you would go straight to hell in their words if you did anything contrary to what they told you the scripture meant.   It was an all or nothing thing.  I am much more comfortable being a “cafeteria Christian.  Not that I pick only the good stuff  I  like to believe and throw out all the condemnation; but I certainly don’t have a You do it or else faith.  I believe that I alone will answer to God someday for my actions and it is that belief that keeps me from spouting condemning Bible verses to people who don’t think the way I do.  It is that belief that makes me read and re-read and try to find out what was meant by certain scriptures and figuring out how to adapt them to the reality of my life today, not Biblical times.

I love the scripture  about  “hiding your words in my heat”.  So many times in times of great stress, or great joy or even just an ordinary moment a verse will pop into my head.  Sometimes it’s just what I need at the time to say to comfort, encourage, or console someone.  Thats  a good thing.  When that happens I feel good about quoting a verse.  But to use a verse as “Mrs. Wilson” did to batter someone else, to attack someone for something  is one thing I hope I am never guilty of. And when that kind of unfounded hatred and cursing is aimed at me, you can bet in my mind I will quietly be saying “forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”