Fumbling Towards Uncertainty (Was OtR In the workplace)

["Matthew Mesina" <soberman_69 at hotmail_com>]

Thanks to all who contributed the work related OtR tales.  I enjoyed them.  
It's nice to know others share my pain.  (Except Don.  I also work in a lab, 
you lucky so and so, BTW.)

Kelvin and another party during an off-list exchange have both asked me 
this:
>
>So you're an optician?
>
I work alongside them as a lab tech, making glasses for the masses.  The 
same masses that Thoreau or Emerson said lead lives of "quiet desperation".  
That may be, but they'll never have to worry about impaired vision on my 
watch, by golly!  So no, I'm not an optician, though I may become one as a 
safety net/plan B sotra thing, but I have other healthcare aspirations.

I am slowly working towards being a nurse.  This is actually scary.  Why?  
Because I DON"T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING.  The whole thing is a GIANT leap of 
faith.  You see, roughly one year ago, after I'd spent the summer reading 
"The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life" by some Puritan woman named Smith 
(which did not deal with the marriage bed, before anybody asks), I prayed 
earnestly to the Lord.  As the book had admonished me to, I threw myself 
before my creator, and begged that He use me, and my life, for His glory.  I 
totally, sincerely submitted myself to His will, which would not have been 
easy but for the fact that I was thinking about someone other than myself 
for a change.  My focus was utterly on saving the soul of the girl I'd 
become involved with, an impossible task at which I was failing, left to my 
own feeble devices.  So I prayed to God that He would speak to her through 
me, his willing vessel.

Shortly afterwards, the Lord began to manifest His will for me in a series 
of subtle and not-so-subtle clues.  People in my life, people I met during 
the month I actually tried chat rooms, strangers, and even books (including 
that Buechner devotional, Kevin), through all these He spoke to me.  The 
message- devote yourself to the care of others, as a nurse, for, in caring 
for others will you feel the most...alive.  Really, these were bona fide 
signs that I couldn't deny or ignore.

So, God help me, here I am.  I am worried, but not frightened, stressed, but 
not panicked, and tumbling headlong toward a goal that I, in my natural 
human selfishness, do not necessarily understand, but, as a faithful 
servant, feel compelled to achieve AT ANY COST.  Really.  No small amount of 
self-sacrifice shall be required of me...very soon.

I keep thinking this is how Moses, Noah et. al. must have felt.  (Though my 
singular efforts to advance the kingdom shall be far less epic in scope.)

switching subjects...

I wrote:
>  How can people be
> > content going through
> > life only listening to music that has been selected
> > for them, relying on
> > soulless conglomerates to dictate to them that which
> > is "good"?

Kelvin replied:
>
>Well...first of all, just because a conglomerate
>dictates something good doesn't necessarily make it
>bad.
>
>Secondly...I don't know.
>
While, I like a bit of pop.  Some, like the recent Neil Diamond song "Movie 
Show", is so awful as to be brilliant.  (You need to hear it.) Then there's 
the not entirely rare stuff that really is good.  So, I never meant to 
assert that corporate music is intrinsically evil.  Unless its country.

>Have any of you guys had any interestng
> > OtR work-related
> > experiences?
>
>My coworkers complained about the OtR track on the
>Roaring Lambs project that was playing over the store
>speakers.

"Goodbye"?  Your kidding, right?  Imagine if they'd heard "If I'm 
Drowning"!!  BTW, you know I mentioned this story in my post.  So that was 
you, huh?  What are you doing now?

This J***s-free post was brought to you by: Soberman, the letters WWJD, a 
dead-to-this-world Puritan woman, and this Public Communications Medium.  
Underwriting was provided by Over the Rhine.  The lack of the need for 
additional funding was provided by the Bush Administration.

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• Re: Fumbling Towards Uncertainty (Was OtR In the workplace)
• From: Kelvin Bailey <prestokelvo at yahoo_com>

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